Memories live in photo envelopes

Posted on February 25, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, daytripping, family, photography | 8 Comments

I investigated the contents of a stack of photo envelopes on my dresser and found that I’d never scanned a bunch of them. Here’s a little peek at a few from the first batch to meet with the scanner.

From a long-forgotten walk in a dream:

On a street corner, under a sky:corner

Memories of memories:mendad
Me and my dad in the backyard in State College. I’m holding a camera that my grandfather picked up in Germany during WWII. My father gave it to me. Ezra took this picture.

Eurotrip 2007-2008: Day Four, New Year’s Day in Berlin and Leipzig

Posted on January 22, 2008
Filed Under Blather, Literary, daytripping, dining, wide world of vacation | Leave a Comment

It’s always a little strange to be vacationing somewhere on a holiday when everything is closed. But it’s sort of like the firecracker thing–it’s a unique experience. I suppose it’s a bit easier to do the natural thing when everything is closed and just wander and explore when it’s 60 or 70 degrees rather than 20 or 30. But I’m not complaining. And besides, it snowed a little!

The remains of the New Year’s revelry were everywhere–on every street and in every neighborhood.



You have to understand that Berlin’s streets–at least most of what we saw–are normally very clean and free of random litter. Usually the streets bear the stamp of human-imposed order. The shells of firecrackers and empty champagne bottles showed a different side of Berlin.

This was the day we planned to spend in Leipzig. We decided to wander around Sophienstrasse in Mitte a little before getting our train. Travel guides make a big deal about the Hackescher Hofe near there, which is supposed to be this cute little series of Jugendstil courtyards, but I found it to be a somewhat soul-less series of shops, with just a little of the promised charm. I really feel like I missed something. It must be totally different on a normal day when everything is open. Sophienstrasse was quite cute, though. It’s just a little street, but there were a few cute little bars and restaurants and some adorable toy shops. We decided to return on Wednesday, once we were back in Berlin.


New Year’s Day on Sophienstrasse in Mitte


Puppets on Sophienstrasse

Trains for Leipzig leave from the big central train station, the Hauptbahnhof. Like some of the other big stations in Berlin, it’s vast and shiny and new, with several open (and therefore chilly) levels of shops and cafes. We cut it a bit close and ended up missing the train we’d hoped to take, so we had to wait an hour for the next one. That gave us time to grab a sandwich (baguette mit kase was like my mantra) and look around a little.

The train to Leipzig was another example of German efficiency and smart engineering. Little LCD panels above each row of seats indicated seat number and the duration of the booked passenger’s trip (Berlin to Munich, for example). Since we didn’t have reserved seats for our journey as we’d missed the first train, those little signs helped to indicate to us which seats we could grab. For the start of our journey we watched the snow go by. Once we got just a little further South the snow thinned and disappeared. The ride only took about an hour.

Leipzig is considerably smaller than Berlin, and it feels a bit less vibrant. I’m sure some of our impression of the place was due to the fact that it was New Year’s Day and a lot of places weren’t open. Our hotel was just down the street from the train station. Because we were visiting off-season, we ended up in possibly the nicest hotel in town (and our reservation was upgraded to boot). It was odd, though. The hotel was right next to a big abandoned building that must have once been a pretty grand place, but which is now covered in graffiti. That has its own sort of charm, I guess, but it makes for a weird juxtaposition. I suppose it’s one of the best examples of what Leipzig is like–fallen, degraded grandeur next to restored and somewhat modernized grandeur.


Abandoned building (left) next to our hotel (right) [Photo borrowed from Ezra]

After settling into our room we wandered the streets, taking everything in. We landed at an old coffee house called Riquet. Had we had a little more preparation time for this trip, we might have realized in advance how cool this place was, but we ended up there regardless. It has a little bit of a Viennese flavor, with dark wood interior and rich little coffees and cakes. It was a bit smoky, too (and the cafes in Vienna were always smoky!). I loved the old clock behind the counter, which chimed like a clock you’d expect to find in some stately old manor.


Riquet in Leipzig

We had coffees and shared a delicious slice of raspberry chocolate cake. Then it was off for more wandering.


Lights in Leipzig

Pretty much the only places open were cafes, bars, and restaurants. What little prep I did for this part of our journey led us to seek out the Madlerpassage, for the Faust-themed Mephisto Bar and Auerbach’s Keller. The story goes that Goethe refers to Auerbach’s Keller, an old (we’re talking 1500s here) underground beer hall/restaurant, in Faust. Mephisto is Auerbach’s Keller’s campy companion bar. Now, I know these places are touristy and Mephisto is certainly a little goofy, but it does its thing awfully well. Everything is in deep tones–red leather, dark wood. The walls are lined with books and devilish little items. We sat near a little statue of a female demon who was, er, displaying her posterior in our direction (very cheeky). At random intervals, a loud cackling erupts and a demonic face appears in the mirror on the wall. A thunderous noise and a puff of smoke seep out from the ceiling and a framed picture on the wall begins to sway. (Ezra theorized that the bartender controlled it all via some button behind the bar.)


Mephisto

We had our dinner at Auerbach’s Keller, where I was pleased to be able to eat more or less authentic German food that was also vegetarian (I had noodles with a tomato gratin, served with a nice big helping of spinach). It was really very good.


Auerbach’s Keller

After dinner we did a bit of walking. I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently Leipzig is the site for a big gothic fest. I can totally see why. Besides all the Faustian goodies, it’s wonderfully dark and old. There are winding streets and craggy old buildings. It’s very shadowy and the streetlamps at night are not particularly bright. You half expect some ghoul to pop out at you from behind a building–but it’s not really at all scary.

We passed a few antiquarian booksellers with some really impressive things in their windows. Maybe someday we’ll go back when those shops are open.

We finished off our day with a drink in the hotel wine bar. The walls of the wine bar were lined with what appeared to be panels from champagne crates, signed by famous guests including the members of REM, Pink, Van Morrison, and (Ezra requires me to mention this) Roger Whitaker. It was another reminder of the sweet digs in which we found ourselves.

Start as you mean to go on… Christmas

Posted on January 15, 2008
Filed Under Blather, Gastronomie, Pennsylvania, christmas, daytripping, dining, family, friends, photography, the pusses | Leave a Comment

OK, so my updates are going to have to stretch back into time here. I’ll get up to the present eventually!

This year felt even more busy at Christmas than usual. Between the Bazaar Bizarre, our party, getting ready to go to Berlin and Nice after Christmas, and the usual Christmas festivities, we were in a bit of a tizzy. I’m not complaining, mind you, though I do hope we can spread things out a little more next year somehow.

Our party was super fun. We had SO MUCH food. Our friends really are the best chefs ever, and this year we were even treated to fabulous homemade bread courtesy of John and Sonya, who made it down for their first (hopefully the first of many) Terri and Ezra holiday party. We were also pleased that the Breens could join us, as we hadn’t seen them for a while.


The Breens: Christie, Elizabeth, Jeffrey, and Patricia

We spent Christmas in State College with my parents and Kim, Glenn, and Hope. The Saturday before Christmas we got a sitter for Hope and went to the State Theatre to see It’s a Wonderful Life on the big screen. Ez and I have seen it several times at The Brattle here in Cambridge, but Mom, Dad, Kim, and Glenn had never seen it on the big screen before. I think the screen at The State is actually bigger than the one at the Brattle. Anyway, it was great. Afterwards Ez and I caught up with our friend John Kenyon for a couple of drinks.

During the day on Saturday Kim and I did a big antiquing extravaganza at Big Valley Antiques and Dairyland. For those of you who don’t know, those are big antique co-ops practically across the highway from each other near Lewistown, PA (I think they’re technically in Milroy??). I love our trips over there. We always make delightful discoveries, and I almost always find some additions for my collection of vintage Christmas postcards. Between Big Valley, Dairyland, and Apple Hill Antiques in State College, I ended up with some new goodies again this time. I’ve promised Kim that I’ll do a post about my collection, so stay tuned.

Sunday we went over to Lewistown to see the aunts and uncles and cousins. Hope wore an adorable dress Kim and Glenn bought her on their trip to Italy and was just generally entertaining and cute as always.


Hope with Nana at Aunt Kay’s house

My Aunt Kay and Uncle Larry had been taking care of a sweet kitty and her five baby kittens, and we got to see them. They were SO ADORABLE. How I wished I could have taken one or two of them, but with Suki and Edie it just didn’t seem like the best idea. I seriously considered it, though! They were the sweetest!

Since we celebrated with the families on Sunday, we spent all of Christmas Day at home in State College. I stretched my toes by the fire and had lots of time to gaze at my new Garbo book, eat holiday M&Ms, and play with the point and shoot camera Ez gave me. Hope made out like a bandit, of course. She spent a little time enjoying her new maracas before becoming enraptured by her new Play-Doh set. Ez and I had lots of fun with her and the Play-Doh.

We had to scurry back to Massachusetts the day after Christmas, which felt a bit weird and rushed, but we made the most of it. Then it was two days at home with the cats and packing before cabbing it to the airport for Eurotrip 2007-2008!

En route, we stopped in New York

Posted on November 30, 2007
Filed Under Blather, christmas, daytripping | 1 Comment

Ez did some work in New York on Tuesday en route to Pennsylvania, and I got a chance to see a bit of the holiday decorations down there as well as the preparations for the big Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.


The decorations at Lord & Taylor were so beautiful that they lured me inside. It was like a glistening wonderland in there! The Macy’s decorations were less impressive (though still very nice), but their windows were quite fabulous. On one side of the building all of the windows depicted scenes from the film Miracle on 34th Street.

Nora asks and I deliver! More NY stories…

Posted on September 3, 2007
Filed Under daytripping | Leave a Comment

So… Most of my quick jaunt down to NY was spent working. The hotel room was pretty small, and when you’re in another city you can’t spend all day in the hotel room, so I worked from coffee shops, cafeterias, and assorted office building atriums.

On Thursday I decided to seek out a Barnes and Noble coffee shop. Yeah, there are Barnes and Nobles everywhere, but I couldn’t spend TOO much time trying to find my workspace. The walk to the B&N would have to serve as my NY adventure. Mission accomplished, as I found a really cool Japanese bookstore right around Rockefeller Plaza. It’s a big shop and probably not exactly a “find” for people who live in NY, but the shop has way more goodies than I can find even at the Japanese mall here in Cambridge (at least, it seemed like it). They have rows of Japanese magazines, children’s and adult books in Japanese, Japanese titles in translation, a bit of clothing and toys, stationery, dictionaries, art books, maps, etc. etc. etc.! I’ve been collecting international fashion magazines, which I pluck through and post clippings from on my wall in the studio for inspiration. I snagged two magazines, Spur and High Fashion, and set off.

I couldn’t find the first B&N on my list, so I headed for the second, which I think is on 54th street. It was in an office building (near a Tealuxe! I didn’t know they had Tealuxe in NY). When I stepped into the building, security scanned my bag. By the time I got into the B&N cafe, it was absolutely packed to the rafters. I wasn’t sure what to do. On my way out of the B&N, security asked to scan my bag again. I asked the security guy to point me to the loo, and on my way there I saw that there was a big atrium downstairs with cafes and a few shops. There were loads of tables and seats there, so I got myself a drink, sat down, and got to work.

Ez and I had read about a free Camera Obscura show in Brooklyn, so that night we hopped the train over. Much as I’d suspected, the back room was jammed and steaming by the time we got there. We opted to just listen from the front of the store. It was nice to spend a little time in Williamsburg. I’ve been to Brooklyn a couple of times before, but that was a long time ago. This part of Brooklyn felt a little like Somerville, actually. I guess there are fewer trees there. We had dinner at a little Italian place with a grape arbor.

On Friday I decided that I’d work pretty much wherever. New York is well saturated with Starbucks, so I settled in at the first one I found (near the Helmsley building) and worked for a few hours.

Then I wanted to go back to the Japanese bookstore. I’m not sure what I thought I’d find that I hadn’t found the previous day, but I had to go! As I approached Rockefeller Plaza, I noticed that there were a lot of police officers and firefighters in dress attire milling around. A few blocks around Saint Patrick’s were closed off, and when I saw a large flower arrangement with the letters FDNY, I knew it was a funeral.

My bag was quite heavy and I decided that I wouldn’t be able to actually get anything at the Japanese bookstore if I didn’t buy another bag (I guess this is not the most economical way to think, but there you have it!). I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so I opted to duck into the H&M, where I got an inexpensive but spiffy red shoulder bag.

By this time the crowds around Saint Patrick’s were massive, and there were speakers on the street pumping out the sounds of singing from inside. I later found out that it was a service for these men.

Back at the Japanese bookstore I picked up two t-shirts, a book called I Am A Cat, a compact album for storing my Christmas postcards (my first album is full!), a set of piggie stickers (on which the piggies say “Happy!”, “Happy?”, and “Simple Is Best”) , and a little pencil case for my purse (which I probably should have bought about, oh, 25 years ago!).

My next stop was a little cafeteria/lunch place called Digby’s. They had cute little fake grass at eye-level all around the edge of the eating area.

After that I found another atrium in an office building on 52nd Street, where I worked for a few hours. Then I met Ez at Macchiato Espresso, downstairs from his office. After we chatted briefly he had to go, but I stayed for a while and did more work. After he left I couldn’t help listening in on an interview that was going on at the table next to me–something about selling fake Rolex’s online. I don’t have the details straight and probably should avoid scooping the reporter (if she was a reporter). That’s the kind of thing I really enjoyed about my time out in New York. I just found myself in so many situations, overhearing and seeing such a variety of characters.

On a walk from home to the 1369

Posted on May 21, 2007
Filed Under Blather, daytripping, me and my brain | 4 Comments

Coming out of the post office this morning, I held the door for the man coming out behind me. He said something and I missed it, so I said something like, “What’s that?” He said, “Aren’t you beautiful?” It was odd—surprising, but not weird enough to be creepy. It was nice, and I said thank you. I don’t know if he meant that I was nice for opening the door or that he thought I was pretty, but either way it was good.

Walking down the street, I saw a cute little girl wearing orange corduroy bellbottoms. (It occurs to me that as a kid I might have hated those pants, but the orange was a nice color.)

I found my Charlie Card.

A bell was ringing as I walked through Harvard yard.

I saw a girl getting a ride from another girl on a sort of trolley/dolly.

Lots of Asian tourists were photographing the statue of John Harvard.

A kid at the 1369 kept blowing something through a straw at his mom and her friend.

Now the leaves on the tree outside my window are dancing in the sun. Happy Monday, everybody!

Finally, news for yous

Posted on December 31, 2005
Filed Under Blather, daytripping, family, photography | Leave a Comment

So I’ve been away for a bit. The lack of posts tells you something about my holidays–they’ve been busy. This is not a complaint.

Before I launch into a short recap, let me say that the long-promised site upgrade is almost done. Hooray! Ezra, my upgrade co-pilot, has been giggling to himself in the shower for the last three minutes. I don’t want to know…

We spent Thanksgiving at Ezra’s family farm near Pittsburgh. It was my first trip there with my digital camera, so I entertained myself a bit, wandering outside, pulling off my gloves long enough to compose a shot and release the shutter, and then bundling up again and moving to another location. As usual, the shots I like the best are posted on flickr. Here are a few:

pump

latch

One day we drove into Pittsburgh. We went a few different places, but ended up on the South Side–as we often do–at The Beehive.

Beauty Salon, Pittsburgh

Though I had fun taking pictures, I feel like I was kind of cranky and tired at Thanksgiving. I was in a better frame of mind when we returned to visit for a few days just before Christmas.

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a blur of holiday preparations. I did tons of shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. for our holiday party on the 10th (we had loads of tasty leftovers–I think the spice cake is a keeper). We also made our own cards this year. Please forgive us if you didn’t get one–we got really behind with the cards and just didn’t finish them all. We’ll do better next year! It was our first attempt at making Christmas cards with the press. I’m pretty pleased with how they came out for a first try.

Christmas was a lovely break. Though it always seems to go by too fast, I also realize when I return home from our holiday trip how it always relaxes me a bit and somehow gets me ready for something new–a new year! Yes, though there’s always a mad rush of holiday things going on, it’s a different and welcome rush compared to the usual work routine.

This year Hope joined us for her first Christmas, and everyone was a-flutter to see her, hold her, and generally coo and grin and giggle when she smiled back at them. She seemed to really enjoy all the attention. Ezra and Hope met for the first time, and after checking each other out

Hope and Ezra in light

they decided they like each other very much.

Mom (Nana) was pretty excited to have her grandbaby around, and of course I enjoyed some aunt time myself.

On the downside, Dad may have a herniated disk and was hobbling around with a cane for much of our visit. It was a family affair, as my own back problems flared up on Friday morning. I heard a few other groans about back pain from other family members, too. May 2006 be the year of happy backs!

Ezra gave me lots of cool photographic stuff for Christmas, including a Holga, which is a medium format toy camera that will allow me to inexpensively experiment with lots of cool effects. It’s just got fun written all over it. Santa also brought me the Garbo DVD set (hooray!) and lots of other goodies (new pajamas! a space-age oven mitt–ain’t nothin’ gettin’ through that baby! new watercolors!).

Well, Ez and I are well overdue to get out of the house and get going on our New Year’s Eve activities. Happy New Year to you! (In jail! No, wait a minute…)

Ups and Downs

Posted on October 3, 2005
Filed Under Blather, daytripping, dining, family, friends, music, photography | Leave a Comment

It’s been a crazy, busy couple of days.

On Friday I went up to Portland for what will be my last Interpol show for a while. They wrapped up their touring for Antics in New York on Sunday night. I had originally planned to go to that show, but then Hope was born and plans changed. The Portland show was good, but kind of strange for me. I was hoping they would play a song or two that I’d never heard live before, because they’d been playing them at other shows recently, but they didn’t. I had also hoped to take pictures with Ezra’s camera… and I could have taken AMAZING pictures because I was in the front row, slightly left of center, and security was pretty mellow. But, alas, the camera wouldn’t turn on. I also had a raging headache from not eating much and probably also from not sleeping properly last week (that’s another story…).

But here’s the good news story of the Interpol show. I drove up and arrived at about 1:00 or 1:30, and met up with Interpol friends Lacinda (from DC) and Michelle (from Israel via Dallas). We hung out around the theater. Michelle is pretty young and was very excited and hoping to meet the guys (especially Carlos). We didn’t have any close encounters or anything, but there were a few pre-show sightings…

John met up with me at around 4:30 or so. I’m sure my Interpol friends and I made him chuckle. After arriving quite early, I easily managed to perch myself in the front row. I had Ezra’s camera (it’s much smaller than mine) and I would have been able to take amazing pictures, but alas, his camera wouldn’t turn on. I was pretty bummed about it for a minute. The barrier was SO close to the stage that the photos would have been great. I did get an up close and personal view of some sort of speaker or monitor seriously bursting into flame during Not Even Jail. It was on Daniel’s side of the stage, and I think it went unnoticed at first because of their smoke/fog machines. The security guy in front of me was just eyeing it helplessly. There was a huge plume of smoke and I started coughing. When Paul noticed what was going on he stopped playing and tried to stop the others. One of their roadies emerged from backstage with a load of towels and pulled off the flaming equipment. Daniel showed that it hadn’t affected his ability to play, so they started up again and all was well. It was pretty dramatic for a minute, though.

The opening band, Boom Bip, was really pretty good. I may seek out their recordings, though I’ve heard that they have a lot more energy live than they do on record.

Though it wasn’t my favorite Interpol show, it was a good one, and it was cool to be up front. Paul threw cookies out into the crowd at the end of the main set. I didn’t get one, but I did get Paul’s setlist and one of Daniel’s picks at the end of the night.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

After the show, I was totally wiped out and was grateful for a nice place to sleep in John’s cozy apartment with John’s cozy cats.

The next day I was dazed and still had a headache from the previous night. Ez and I gobbled some wonderful goodies at a place called Mims down by the water, did a little more in Portland, but then had to get back home. I was exhausted.

Next day I dragged my sorry bones and drove to State College. I hadn’t done the drive on my own in a while. It was a bit surreal, but I stayed awake and made it just in time to see the beginnings of a beautiful sunset over the Pennsylvania countryside.

Then on Monday I drove down here, to Virginia. I met my sweetie tweet niece, Hope, and have been able see her, hold her, and feed her each day I’ve been here. She is soo soo tiny and so totally unblemished and sweet. I have taken approximately a zillion pictures of her. Here are a few of my favorites, in case you haven’t already seen them:

Hope, eyes open, 10-3-05

Hope!

Oooo

Well… this has been a totally wandering post. Somebody get me a cozy, uninterupted nap–stat!

Labor Day

Posted on September 5, 2005
Filed Under Blather, Red Sox, daytripping, dining, family, music, the written word | Leave a Comment

Last Thursday night Ezra kindly joined me for the Hail Social/Rainer Maria show at the Middle East. I am loving Hail Social–their whole album is quite infectious, and the only disappointment at the show was the crowd. The place was a bit empty. I guess a lot of folks still don’t know about Hail Social. Part of me wishes I’d taken my camera, because it seemed like I would have been able to take loads of pictures. Oh well–maybe I’ll take my camera for Of Montreal on Sunday. We did have Ezra’s camera and managed to get a few pictures–mostly of Rainer Maria. They were decent. I’m not a huge fan, but it was an OK show.

Friday night my parents arrived for a weekend visit. It’s always nice when they come up here to visit–it tends to feel more relaxed than other visits for some reason. On Saturday we grilled in the afternoon and attempted to go to the night’s baseball game. That didn’t quite work out, but I was able to get a promise that they’ll plan ahead to go to a game with us next year. Sunday we drove up to Ogunquit. I thought we should check it out since it’s just one exit past Kittery and we’d never really been there. We parked in Perkins Cove (we had the magic touch with parking spaces all day) and walked around, taking everything in. It’s very cute, and after a couple of downpours on the highway on the way up, it turned out to be a gorgeous day.

Boats, Perkins Cove

We drove back along Route 1 past the little houses and many antique shops and stopped for some “Back to School” shopping at the outlets. Then (of course) we took the folks to the Portsmouth Brewery for dinner. I think they enjoyed the day. I know they really like Maine, so I wanted to get up there, and I wanted to go somewhere new (Ogunquit). They left after breakfast this morning.

It’s another gorgeous day. I was going to do some work (yeah, I know, despite it being Labor Day), but then I had to get outside, so I went for a jog. I’ll probably still do a little work anyway–but just a little.

Maybe you’ve noticed that I haven’t written much about all of the terrible things that have been happening in the world lately. It’s not that I don’t know or that I don’t care. I do care–it’s always there, but I can’t dwell on it all the time. I guess I care too much.

Not quite the same… but essentially on target, is this poem by Anne Sexton that I love. Here’s a bit of it:

(Different…)

“Is life something you play?
And all the time wanting to get rid of it?
And further, everyone yelling at you
to shut up. And no wonder!
People don’t like to be told
that you’re sick
and then be forced
to watch
you
come
down with the hammer.”

(But coming to the same…)

“Today life opened inside me like an egg
and there inside
after considerable digging
I found the answer.
What a bargain!
There was the sun,
her yolk moving feverishly,
tumbling her prize –
and you realize she does this daily!
I’d known she was a purifier
but I hadn’t thought
she was solid,
hadn’t known she was an answer.

[...]

I say Live, Live because of the sun,
the dream, the excitable gift.”

Harry, Motherless Brooklyn, and Austin’s release

Posted on August 15, 2005
Filed Under Blather, art, daytripping, dining, family, films, friends, the written word | 2 Comments

Ezra and I have lately been engaged in our normal summertime activity of reading Harry out loud to each other. I have to admit, though, that I’ve been doing most of the reading this time. I love to read it… It’s addictive or something. We re-read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix first–to refresh our memories since so much happens in that book–and now we are in the midst of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’m enjoying it immensely. In just a few hours when Ez is home and we’ve had our dinner and everything, we will likely be reading it again!

On the “what I’m reading on my own” tip, I carry Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem with me to the gym. It’s slow going just reading it at the gym, but it’s really quite good. Ezra read one of his other books, The Fortress of Solitude, and he really liked it. I will have to read that one as well, because it sounds excellent.

We saw Rita, Brian, Cheri, Matt, and Kirsten last night… for the first time in ages (well, it was the first time I actually got to meet Matt in person!). It was really nice to see everyone. Ladies, if you’re reading this (that means you, Cheri!)–hello, dears! I don’t expect that Matt and Brian ever drop in here, but I could be wrong! Hello everyone! Anyway… a lovely rainy night in a pub was had by all. AND Ez and I were finally able to give Rita the life-size Austin Powers talking effigy we’ve been meaning to give her for about a year now. It was truly a memorable evening. (K. Bates, unfortunately, had a migrane and had to stay home. Literally, a raincheck, for we must get together soon.)

Kim’s Virginia shower is this weekend. I’ve been cooking up a storm in preparation–trying out recipes and whatnot. A little while ago I made yummy scones (not really hard to do!), and last weekend Ez and I worked on our egg salad recipe. Mmm. Food.

curled

crawling up the sky

dragonfly 4

A few weekends ago, we went to the DeCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln with our wonderful friends Amy and Doug. It was one of the first nice days we’d had weather-wise in a long time. It was much fun to wander around the sculpture park, and I took entirely too many pictures, of course. We realized after a bit that we were all pretty dehydrated, though. Afterward we went to see Broken Flowers, which was pretty good–definitely worth seeing. And then we wandered in restlessness unable to be decisive on dinner… which was I think one part tiredness (at least, on my part), several parts too-nice-ness (everyone deferring to everyone else), one part not-knowing-too-much-about-the-area, and several parts general lack-of-decisiveness and wander-ment. Anyway, it was a lovely evening, and I was happy to be out among friends. When hunger took over, we ended up having just the nicest dinner and drinks at Laurel on Berkeley Street in Boston. Thank you (a bit late) Amy and Doug!

arches

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Photos

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The Knitting Turnip

On My Needles

Rhapsody in Tweed cabled pullover for Ezra! using Tahki Donegal Tweed in Forest, from Fall 2004 Interweave Knits. I've just picked this one up again, so it's moving up in the queue!

Sweater with Cable Patterns pullover using Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in Mauve, from Rebecca Magazine Number 28

Heather Pullover using Classic Elite Wings in Larkspur, from Rowan’s A Season’s Tale... This needs the knit doctor. I'm going to have to frog back a little bit and redo the shoulder area. Long story.

Hush Pullover using Jo Sharp DK wool in Wine, from Rowan’s Calmer Collection

Recently Finished Projects

In the Groove boatneck pullover using Manos del Uruguay in Black and Cheek (pale pink), from Fall 2006 issue of knitscene. SWEATER IS DONE!

Stash Stealer Scarf for me, using delicious yarn that darling Amy let me raid from her stash. I made up the pattern--a couple of wide ribs rimmed in moss stitch. It's soft and fuzzy and DONE!

Moss Stitch Jacket with Collar for Hope using Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo in Ivy, from Quick Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss. JACKET IS DONE!

Next in line

Brompton cardigan using Noro Cash Iroha in Jewel Green (my name for shade #100)

Eyelet Yoke Pullover using Debbie Bliss Merino Aran

Under consideration

Loads!

More scoop on my knitting endeavors can be found at my home on Ravelry (clicky here).

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