Ezra’s Birthday

Posted on February 3, 2010
Filed Under Literary, art, daytripping, dining, music | 4 Comments

Yesterday was Ezra’s extra-fantastic birthday. He took the day off and we (Ez, Rainey, and me) all had such a nice time. We had yummalicious brunch at the S&S–haven’t been there in ages. (I had a boursin omelet and wheat toast, because I know you’re wondering!) There were at least four babies there besides Rainey, and overall it was pretty busy. It gave me a cozy feeling to see that they’re still packin’ ‘em in after 90 years. A woman sat down next to us and ordered borscht and chopped liver.

Then we hopped in the car. Well, we shimmied into the car. The S&S parking lot is a bit snug–all side mirrors had to be tucked in. We headed northward and did a little light birthday shopping in Kittery. Ez got a sweater, a cute hat, and funky shoes; Rainey got a few goodies, including a Steelers shirt for next season; and I even found something.

A trip northward is never complete without a stop in Portsmouth. Some years back–I think it was 2007–we wandered into Nahcotta Gallery on one such stop in Portsmouth and found ourselves surrounded by lots of the most wonderful little pieces of artwork. We had stumbled upon the very first Enormous Tiny Art Show. We wandered the pieces for a long time–probably more than an hour–and picked a piece or two that we hoped to buy. Alas, we were very much novices at the whole art buying thing, and all the pieces that interested us were already sold. The Enormous Tiny Art Show has become a biannual event at Nahcotta, and it’s even expanded to their sister gallery, Three Graces, as The Teeny Tiny Art Show. The Enormous Tiny Art Show 7 and The Teeny Tiny Art Show VI open this Friday, February 5th. It so happens that the folks at Nahcotta were busy hanging the art for ETA 7 yesterday, so we got near first pick of all the glorious goods. And, as it was Ezra’s birthday, we couldn’t say no. May I introduce…

tiny village

Tiny Village
8×8
Gouache on panel
Laura Berger

and…
Her Past was Never Far Behind

Her Past was Never Far Behind
4×7
Encaustic and mixed media diptych on panel
Beth Billups

Happiness!

Our trip to Portsmouth also included visits to River Run Books and BullMoose Music. Add American Rust by Philipp Meyer to my to-read list. Musically, I’ve recently been most interested in picking up jazz albums. In the last couple of weeks, those have included Giants Three: Nat Cole, Lester Young, and Buddy Rich (Verve, Recorded in Los Angeles in December 1945, vinyl), RCA Victor Vintage Series: Dizzy Gillespie (Recorded in the 30s and 40s, this collection released in 1966, vinyl), The Amazing Bud Powell (Blue Note, Recorded between 1949 and 1953, vinyl, some tracks feature Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins), Atmosphere for Lovers and Thieves by Ben Webster (On Black Lion, 1965, vinyl), and Dizzy on the French Riviera (Dizzy Gillespie, Recorded 1962, Verve CD).

Giants 3 Bud Powellben websterdizzy

(I couldn’t find a good picture of the RCA Victor Dizzy record.)

Actually, I found the first two of those last Sunday at Twisted Village in Cambridge. I wasn’t sure if they were still kicking, but they ARE, thank goodness.

Ezra’s birthday was appropriately rounded off by dinner at The Portsmouth Brewery (where I had delicious smoked tofu and polenta) and caffeine at Breaking New Grounds. It happened to be game night at Breaking New Grounds, so we got in a round of Bananagrams before heading home.

Here’s to another year of Ezra!!

Catching Up

Posted on May 29, 2009
Filed Under Blather, das kiddo, daytripping, family, friends, music, this old house | 2 Comments

Time marches on, and progress continues.

Over the last couple of weekends, Ez and I ran about a million errands, and at the end of it all we had an assembled crib with mattress and crib skirt in place, nursery curtains hung, fully-stocked kitchen cabinets, and cheerful new plants to add to the new-life vibe we’re cultivating. We also found time to go to the beach on Memorial Day.

May 19 we went to see St. Vincent at the Somerville Theater. Opening act Pattern as Movement was… well… hideous in my opinion. My attempt to describe them: Opera jazz rock with ethnic yodels and sea lions. Ezra’s attempt, perhaps more on the nose: Catholic liturgical prog mass. I’m sure they’re lovely people, but… no. St. Vincent is always good stuff, and the new album sounds like another solid effort, but the show felt too short. After seeing her from the front row at the Middle East last year, the whole thing felt much less intimate to me. The Somerville Theater isn’t a bad venue for her, but really small venues are often best. Tuesday’s show was the first of her current tour, so perhaps later shows will feel a tad more spontaneous.

Recently, I also got to visit with dear friend Heather and meet her adorable doggie, Mischa. No joke, I’d say at least 15 groups of people stopped on the street to admire the pup and chat with us. That Mischa is a charming pooch.

We went to our first childbirth class this week. Seems good so far. Ez made me giggle–probably without even trying–during the relaxation exercise.

Ooo–we are finally getting a new dryer. Whooppee! Dry clothes.

Okay, so this post is pretty boring, with no fun pictures. I plan to follow it up with a silly post, less relevant to anything at all, but with pictures (not mine). Prepare for visual stimulation! Ish!

A Visual Montage

Posted on April 22, 2009
Filed Under Blather, craft, daytripping, friends, knitting, photography | 3 Comments

I promised a picture of the little hat I knit over the weekend, so here it is!

Knit hat

And while I’m at it, here are a few others to catch you up on the last several months.

Union Square, New York January in New York’s Union Square

doorway, Portsmouth
A Doorway in Portsmouth, NH

And the obligatory picture of a cute baby, Lydia, who we finally met over the weekend.

Lydia and JohnLydia and John

A Monday in New England, or an excuse to catch up on the ol’ blog

Posted on April 20, 2009
Filed Under Blather, craft, das kiddo, daytripping, family, friends, knitting, sports in general, this old house | Leave a Comment

So it’s Patriot’s Day, which I didn’t even know existed before I moved to the Boston area. And it’s Marathon Monday–this year it’s the 113th running of the Boston marathon. A guy Ezra works with has already finished. He came in 60th overall. Yeah, that’s right, 60th out of 26,331. One of Ezra’s other co-workers and our friend Randolph are still hoofing along and seem to be doing quite well. Whoop whoop!

Suki is at my shoulder as I write this, accepting kisses and purring.

Some New Englanders have today off; Ezra is working from home.

We had quite a busy weekend. Saturday we met up with friends John, Sonya, and their wee spunkmeister Lydia. Pictures of Lydia eating and generally checking out the world are coming soon. After a nice little visit with the pals, we decided to go to IKEA. Our goal this trip out was to get some lamps for the nursery, but of course we ended up finding a lot of other things that we genuinely need as well–a new bathroom rug, some little pads to prevent our furniture from scratching the floor, that sort of thing. Then yesterday we rented a U-Haul van and moved some assorted furniture out of the home office and into the studio. I’m not yet totally useless for such things, though anyone watching me push my wheeled cabinet up the ramp at the studio enjoyed quite a little comedy routine, and I did wake up this morning with an assortment of aches. We moved the larger part of the desk through our (open) front window… we’re just a couple of engineering geniuses is all.

Last Friday we had a doctor’s appointment, and afterward I wandered over to Windsor Button, where I found two skeins of Sirdar Sublime yarn–one a washable merino and one a washable cotton. They’re in such nice colors–I had to get them to make hats for our mini muncher. I finished the first one last night–they’re so easy! Pictures to come.

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!

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Song of the Day

The Essex Green-Sorry River 

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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

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

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