bird: a four-letter word

As though the garden didn't have enough problems with-- wait, there are so many that it calls for a bulleted list:

• Late blight. It's all over Ithaca, and most of central New York, and my community garden. It's actually kind of heart-breaking -- lots of people, including my gardening partner-in-crime H., had to pull up their tomato plants because of the dreaded plague. It's an ugly sucker, too, with that evil black stuff poisoning the vines. It first started in a big-box store a few miles away (another reason to support local farmers and buy only locally grown seedlings blah blah etc.) but the spores go airborne pretty quickly, and then everyone's done for. I think I got lucky because my tomato plants just happen to be at the end of my garden, isolated from other people and each other, and are also...
• Sad, stunted plants. Seriously, the biggest tomato seedlings, the two I bought from the farmer's market? MAYBE a foot and a half tall. And that is being charitable. All the rest that I started from seed, including the Oregon Springs that are supposed to be early producers, are sad little runts. Perversely, that might be what saved them from the dreaded blight: There just wasn't as much surface area for an airborne spore to grab.
• Rain. It rains every. single. day. and for a long time, too. Big soaking rains. All the bottom leaves are yellow, the soil is soggy, everything is sagging. Some of my herbs, especially the cilantro and the dill, are turning this weird rust color in addition to the sickly yellow and pale green. I'm sure the clouds are responsible for the above-mentioned stuntedness, too... last I checked, plants need sun to grow.
• Bugs. They love the rain and the soggy soil and they are just the HAPPIEST bugs you ever did see. Cucumber beetles, squash bugs, cylindrical black things, god knows what else. Isn't it thrilling that I can provide such a fine home for them.
• And finally, birds. The one plant that likes this crap weather, the peas, are being pecked apart by evil demons from the sky. They don't even eat the whole things -- they delicately remove all the peas from inside the pods and then leave the remainders hanging on the vine like little victory flags. I have a large ridiculous plastic owl on the top of the trellis; the birds are not fooled.

I am foiling them, however, by going out to pick the peas as frequently as humanly possible. I definitely have more than I know what to do with now. This was last night's dinner: (Shannon's recipe for ginger sugar snap peas did them justice.)

Oh yeah, and I was in Chicago for a week and went to an excellent conference with 14,000 librarians. And J. is almost done with his dissertation (knocking wood, crossing fingers) and school is kind of killing me but in a good way and my internship is going well. And I'm taking tonight off from everything to knit and watch Top Chef Masters, and going to Harry Potter tomorrow night. And in between, I will be weeding, killing bugs, and trying to chase birds off while waving my arms around like a lunatic.

radish freakshow

Step right up, folks:

A shiny quarter will get you a little closer:

That's not the only weird thing in the garden this year -- the massive amounts of rain have brought out some curious creatures that I definitely wasn't acquainted with last year. Giant orange slugs, which so far haven't done any damage I can see, and cucumber beetles, which most certainly have. The adults are eating lacy holes through my squash leaves, but the larvae are apparently the real concern. If they get into the roots and stem, you're toast. And not toast with delicious grilled squash on it, either. You are produce-less toast. I'm going to get some floating row covers, and those bugs had better float on by.

I have to say, I am feeling not so fine at the moment. Some bad and/or stressful and/or scary things are happening to some people in my life who don't deserve them, and I feel guilty over how whiny I am about my own lucky-ass life, because this is the first time that school is really changing my exceedingly comfortable existence here. A few times during this last year, I've felt stressed or out of time, but this is different. No vacations (unless you count a one-night family wedding in Chicago, a library conference also in Chicago, or a weeklong class in Syracuse)(and I do not count those things), no random weekend trips, turning down invitations to hang out on weeknights, skipping dance class to do schoolwork, neglecting the garden, not returning phone calls, forgetting birthdays, letting too many things slide. I am totally mystified at how people manage to go to school while working full-time and maintaining their sanity and also raising children and running marathons and solving crime and who knows what else. I've been trying it for four weeks now and am pretty much done with it already.

dude

Like, where have you BEEN all my life. I have been interning and writing papers and working and not sleeping enough and certainly not blogging ever. I often complain that my graduate program isn't haaaaard enough and I am not intellectually chaaaaaaallenged and it's expeeeeeensive and whiiiiiiiiine. I need to stop doing that, because the class I'm taking on telecom and information policies? It is hard. And my life would be easier if it were... easier. Fortunately, though, it's interesting, as is my internship, so I can't really complain. But I do miss bad TV and knitting and calling people back. (Sorry about that -- I really will, soon.)

Something else I haven't been doing enough? Weeding. Seriously, if this were a war, the weeds would be doing victory laps around my defeated lifeless body in chariots made of gold.

Here is the garden this year: Those pretty yellow flowers by the door? Weeds. A brief garden tour, starting at noon and going clockwise: trellis for growing bush beans, currently supporting 40000 weeds because the beans still haven't been planted; giant trellis with snow peas in the back and sugar snap peas in the front; just behind that is a flower bed with zinnias, nasturtiums and wildflowers (I know, right? weird and I still don't believe they'll actually grow); two rows of basil; 10 tomato plants going along 5, 6 and 7 o'clock; three mint plants (spearmint, variegated peppermint, pineapple mint (who knew? also, what am I going to do with it? pineapple tea?)) in the back corner against the fence; 3 zucchini; 3 yellow squash; 3 butternut squash; 8 bell pepper plants with space for two more; in the upper left corner, spinach; arugula; radishes; back to the weed/bean trellis. In the center of the circle, hopefully for maximum bug-repelling activity, is the herb garden -- cilantro, oregano, flat-leaf parsley, rosemary, sage, chives, dill, I am forgetting one or two.

Tri-color basil: I see purple and green... what could the third color be?

Am kind of in love with the peas: I had no idea how much fun it was to grow them. I love the tiny shoots that spring off and grab whatever they can reach. Sometimes they're grabbing on to weeds, and you have to gently twist them free. The weeds are not your friends, wee pea plants! Do not cling to unhealthy relationships to support you!

The squash cohort: Note that I am trying straw mulch this year. Not as much of a weed deterrent as I'd hoped, but it at least makes the paths through the garden clearer and gives me a better chance of not trampling my chives all the time.

Hm, I seem not to have taken a photo of the radishes in the actual ground where they grow, but here they are in cleaner form in J.'s hand: Radishes seem to mature really, really quickly, and we have been eating the ones I've had to thin. Delicious and spicy.

Send radish recipes, if you have any good ones. I have one for pickled radishes that a friend recommended, but I'm not sure. Let's put it to a vote: Pickled radishes, yes or no? And can anyone come help me weed? I will pay in radishes and baby arugula and eternal devotion.

april showers bring may's frost warning

Thanks for keeping life interesting, central New York weather! It's going to be in the low 30s tonight and tomorrow night. I guess they -- "they" -- weren't kidding with that whole Zone 5 spiel about how tender plants shouldn't go in before May 15. I think I'm supposed to be safe with peas and radishes, since they're early spring plants and as of Thursday afternoon, they weren't sending up their first shoots yet, but I doubt freezing temperatures are super great for seed germination either. Ah well.

I'm giving a workshop about Twitter at a public library in Syracuse Tuesday night, and it occurred to me on the drive back from Lancaster today that I am totally unprepared to demonstrate anything to 25 elderly computer users of various skill levels and am actually really damn freaked out about the whole thing. So tonight, I came home, unpacked my things, made a healthy dinner, placed admiring phone calls to my teacher friends who do this sort of thing multiple times every day to less forgiving audiences, carefully reviewed my detailed lesson plan, practiced my presentation, and went to bed early.

Ha. Instead, I...

1. Watched about a dozen videos of baby goats from the farm doing my yarn CSA.

2. Added books about raising goats and other farm animals to my various wishlists and library bookbags.

3. Drafted an email to a woman I met at a holiday party who has invited us to come out to her goat farm.

4. Enjoyed this Unshelved strip.

5. Bought the textbook for my summer class, which cost $80 used and looks a little daunting.

6. Searched the Food Goodness archives for recipes involving the only two fresh produce items we have in the house: one yellow pepper and half a package of spinach.

7. Ate cereal.

8. Watched the episode of Sex in the City where Carrie meets Berger, who I think is her second-best love interest (next to Aiden, of course, who is the only truly decent man she ever dated, and please do not argue with me on this point becuase I know I am right and will accept no other opinions, especially if they involve Mr. Big).

9. Decided it was too late to work on my presentation and I'll just worry about it tomorrow. Oy. Do I really have to do this?

the most wonderful time of the year

Spring planting! I am trying to fulfill my 31 for 31 resolution and branch out this year, starting with this: Pretty seed packets, come home with me. I want to make a quilt out of you or something.

I'm trying to start a lot more from seed this year: sugar snap peas, snow peas, green beans (their name is "Contender," which I love -- I imagine little beans putting on boxing gloves and running up and down the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum), tri-color bush beans, radishes, spinach, mesclun greens, more varieties of herbs. That stuff is going directly in the ground, but I'm also trying to start tomatoes indoors:

J returned from his travels last month with two varieties of tomato seeds, Oregon Spring and Yellow Jubilee, so I invested the $2.99 at yonder Agway for one of those mini-greenhouse trays and put it in the warmest, sunniest spot in the house. Everything was going swimmingly for the first week or two, until one morning when the first seedlings started hitting the top of the plastic lid and I decided it was time to take it off. When I got home from work that day, I was greeted with this: We have lost our nascent will to live.

Put the lid back on and the seedlings are fine again, but I'm now getting to the point where their growth is being stunted because they're hitting the lid, and they don't even tolerate a small amount of time without it. Tonight, I only had it off for a few hours before the melodramatic drooping started. I'm thinking maybe it's a lack of water, and they need a water tray beneath them? Or they're too cold, in which case I have no solution. Any and all suggestions appreciated.

Another new develoopment this year is that I have a partner in gardening crime. My friend, who will henceforth be known as H, has a spot in the community garden this year too, and she and her boyfriend and I have three plots next to each other. We spent most of yesterday building a gigantic 75-foot fence with J (H, I and J! ha), and today she and I were out for several hours doing our first plantings -- peas and radishes for me and potatoes for her. She is already putting me to shame with her neatly square raised beds and her detailed map that is, like, measured out and stuff.

In summary: Yay! I missed the garden and now it is back all over again.

kreative kat

My wonderful school friend Leslie tagged me with this: and now I will do this:

"List 7 things that you love, and then pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you love! Be sure to tag them and let them know that they have won. You can copy the picture of the award and paste it on your sideboard letting the whole world know...you are Kreativ."

1. Open windows.
2. Dogs and goats, up to and including rectangular pupils.
3. Walking into a new yarn store for the first time.
4. Dark brown eyes.
5. Stripes.
6. Vegetarian Times and Bitch magazine.
7. Twitter.

And I tag Shannon, Angie, Alissa, Kelly, Michael, Cindy, Cara and Scott.

naked as we came

(Special note for Bunny Watson: That song made me teary too, the first time I heard it.)

J's grandfather died on Friday, and I won't talk too much about it out of respect for his family -- it's not my story to tell. But as I was driving back from the funeral tonight, I was Thinking Many Thoughts About Life And Mortality etc. etc. and listening to Antje Duvekot's new CD, The Near Demise of the Highwire Dancer.

(Detour for shameless plug: A lot of us have been listening to Antje ever since she was just Alissa's cool roommate who played music, but this CD feels to me like it should be her big break. She has totally come into her own. Maybe it has something to do with production value or fancy music-producer things? All I know is that the album is amazing.)

Anyway. A few of the songs on it are songs she'd released on previous albums from live concerts, and wow why is it taking me so long to get to the point here, I was driving and it was dusk and the sun was setting over the Catskills and it looked something like this... Thanks to flickr user lillergy.

... but with huge mountains up so close to the road, bracing the left side of the whole drive. And then, in the middle of what may be my favorite-ever song from Antje (and in the running for my favorite-ever song from anyone in the history of time), came the lyric, "You can ask the mountain/ The mountain doesn't care." And it was perfect, and it seemed just like life: beautiful, heartbreaking, everything in between.

North Montana was so cold
She keeps her secrets frozen
Under glaciers way up north
People have got lost up there
In the home of the grizzly bear
And you can ask the mountain
The mountain doesn't care

And it's a long way to Delaware and back
And it's a long way
'Cause it's a long way, with clouds upon our backs
And it's a long, long, long, long way.

the best of the series of tubes

I don't know who Greg Rutter is, but his list of the 99 things you should have experienced on the Internet unless you're a loser or old or something is quite enjoyable.

In other news, I am planting today! In little plastic cups, not the ground. J. returned from a trip with a couple packages of tomato seeds, so I'm going to try starting my own seedlings this year. Am excited to get my hands dirty. But first, more schoolwork. Dirt will be my reward.

27: the final countdown

This Thing We're Doing is now officially That Thing We Did, and my favorite part of it was that a bunch of people from different places in my life did it, and it was so much fun to read everyone's thoughts so often. Hooray. It also has gotten me back in the habit of blogging, I think, because when I saw this, my first thought was that I couldn't wait to put it here:

Oh, I love it. What a perfect closing for This Thing. May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, and may you always line-dance like a Belgian commuter fueled by the fire of a Julie Andrews hip hop remix.

26: ow. also, wow.

I just came back from seeing Wendy and Lucy. My heart and brain and entire being hurt. That is one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen.

Uh. I feel like I was just run over by a truck. A truck full of despair. Here, from happier days (i.e. yesterday)... we baked these cupcakes for the birthday party of a friend who studies crickets: The praying mantis was so big that he didn't fit on a cupcake, so he had to be eaten separately.

25: hey, good-lookin'

Whatcha got cookin'? Hi, 25. You're looking pretty fine tonight. Yes, yes you are. What's that? You're more posts than I wrote in the entire year of 2007? Why, you're correct! (Also, I can tell you're a little unsettled by that new Blogger tab that says "monetize," and I don't blame you, because I am too.)

This occasion seems appropos for a post with a little more narrative tension than usual, don't you think?

I went to see the African Children's Choir tonight with a friend who had an extra ticket. I walked in kind of hazy on the details of what we were about to see (and so was she; her tickets had come as part of a package deal) and I walked out confused and conflicted. According to the brochure, which is a big "according to" and I really need to do some research about the backing organization, these kids come from very poor parts of Africa and are often orphaned by one or both parents. There was a video showing some of their neighborhoods in different countries in Africa, and testimonials from young adults about how much the choir, which has been around since 1984, has changed their lives.

During the program, a few real-live graduates sang and talked about the program, as well as their current successes in college and the way the program had helped them rise out of poverty. They were interspersed between these incredibly adorable little kids in costumes, singing and dancing. About half the songs were traditional African songs in Swahili or some of the kids' native languages (again, assuming), and the other half were in English. Those were mostly things along the lines of "This Little Light of Mine" set to horrifying '80s synthesizer soundtracks.

The good: Clearly, the children's lives are better for having done this. They are fed and clothed and healthy and educated. For the most part, at least in the first half, the kids looked like they were having a great time singing and dancing and drumming and responding to the applause of the audience. They also are taking home an amazing gift to the kids who don't get chosen: the vast sums of money that keep open special schools run by this program. They claim they educate thousands and thousands of African children a year, just a fraction of whom are the ones who actually go on tour with the choir. (As an aside, it must be a total head trip to be one of the people who chooses the most talented and attractive and healthy kids to go on tour and leaves the rest behind at the schools.)

The bad: What is the ethical cost of this? These kids aren't remotely old enough to choose this life for themselves, and certainly not old enough to choose their religion (although I suppose no kids who are raised with any kind of religion are). But it's pretty clear that they are being used -- trained, in fact, a word they used freely in the video, to sing and dance for rich Western audiences. They are taken around countries they know aren't theirs and asked to stand up every night and look happy at the right times, sad at the right times, sing songs in multiple languages they may or may not understand. They are asked to dance traditional dances for money, to dress up for money, to sing for money, to look cute for money, to look needy for money.

I can't even figure out what I think about this. I mean, in balance, this is good, right? However they've gotten our filthy Western money, they've gotten it, and they're making children's lives better with it. It wouldn't matter if the kids were chosen to go on tour by lottery, or standing up on stage juggling puppies and fire batons, or taught to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- this money is good. And people wouldn't fork over the $30 if they weren't getting a ticket to something that would give them a particular experience.

This entire set-up is counting on some Western need for a transaction to take place, for us to get something in return for the giving of money, right? People wanted the experience; they didn't just want to give $30 for this program without going to see it in action.

But wow, did it feel horrible to me to be having that experience. The beginning, with the African dances and pretty costumes, was odd but manageable. At intermission, my friend and I talked about how weird this felt and how we weren't sure we were comfortable, but we didn't actually consider leaving. Halfway through the second act, during the video, I wanted to run screaming from the room. I have never been so consciously aware of exploiting something or someone while in the act of doing it as I was tonight.

I am going to be more conscious about it from now on, but I'm still completely conflicted about the whole thing. Is it good that I went, or was it just perpetuating the problem? If I'd known what it would be like, should I have just written a check instead and not made myself uncomfortable for two hours on a Friday night, or was that experience worth something in itself?

24: i've got a bad case of lovin' you

So... huh. It turns out that if you stop eating cheese and butter and exercise more, your cholesterol WILL go down. I swear I didn't believe it until now, but there we have it. My doctor's appointment this morning was shockingly positive, with the guy giving me all sorts of kudos for my new and improved numbers, admiring my healthy eating habits, gently suggesting that I exercise every day of the week (oof), and sharing tips about what kind of cottage cheese he prefers.

Of course, things can't be all positive, so when he took my blood pressure, I got a careful, "Are you nervous?" Ha.

Still, this is sort of encouraging. And high on my new success, I went and laid down a few hundred dollars for a year-long gym membership. It isn't the most financially responsible thing I've ever done, since technically I am a member of all of C*rnell's sprawling fitness facilities for free, but the fact is that I hate them and I never go. This gym has tons of classes (in fact, it's the gym where I take African) and it's small and lovely and clean and close to my house and not full of sorority girls in skintight sweatpants with "juicy" written across the butt. Also, tax refund! Woo!

Alright, time to settle down for some exciting reading about benchmarking and assessment plans. And a lifetime of avoiding butter.

23: life lesson #3485734952341

Do not eat from a salad bar and/or a Chinese food bar after 9 p.m. You are not "lucky that it is still open," you are "eating food that has been sitting out for about a million hours." God, it sounds so obvious when it's all written out like that. Blech.

Here, you should watch this. Just trust me. Or don't, actually, at least not when it comes to advice on food-borne illnesses.

22: head of the class

In a moment of really weird judgement, I volunteered to teach a workshop at a public library near Syracuse. It's part of the library's "Tech Tuesday" series and it's about Twitter, which is near and dear to my heart. I went to another TT workshop tonight, and I think I can do this, but... help? Any teacher tips would be greatly appreciated. I have experience speaking in front of groups and feel fairly comfortable with it, but I've never tried to TEACH anyone anything in a formal setting except how to knit, which is a little different.

21: I so used up all my garden-related titles last summer

Kelly may be the first person ever to call me "extraordinaire" in reference to, uh, anything! I was so excited that I couldn't contain all of my half-baked advice in her comments, so I am going to answer her question here.

In my opinion, the best thing to grow in your garden is...

... drumroll please...

... an answer Kelly already suggested for herself: herbs! Here are my reasons:

- They are incredibly easy to grow. Herbs are so strong that insects don't like them and will leave them alone. Dill is even considered a bug repellent if you let it flower. (Big exception: Japanese beetles. The little bastards were all up in the basil by the end of the summer, but I had enough basil that I uprooted an entire infested plant and got rid of it, and that pretty much solved the problem.)

- You can start them from seed easily. This makes you feel like a master gardener, to magically make tiny seeds become plants, and is also cheap.

- They are the best value. One little bunch of cilantro is $1.99 at the supermarket; $1.99 worth of cilantro seeds will yield more than you can eat in an entire summer.

- Unlike tomato or squash or any plants that bear fruit, the edible parts regenerate if you keep them trimmed, so you can get more and more and more from one wee plant. (I learned the hard way about which part of the plant you should trim, by the way, which I can share with you when you get to that stage.)

- Herbs you grow taste exponentially better and stronger than those you buy at the supermarket. Real true fact.

- People like to get herbs, and they are easy to give away. I never knew quite what to do with the bumper crop of tomatoes, because they were too heavy and delicate to drag to work, but it was no problem to give away an entire trashbag of basil. Your coworkers make pesto and then they tell you they love you.

- The variety is really fun, and they don't take up that much room. You can plant just a few seeds of a lot of different kinds of herbs and have many options. I found myself wanting more of some and less of others, and that's way more doable than if I wanted 20 different varieties of squash or broccoli or something.

- They freeze well whole. I had no idea this was true until too late for some of my stuff, but you can freeze whole cilantro and then just use it straight from the freezer as though it's fresh. Not quite as good, but still more than passable.

Now comes the part when I reveal I may not have any idea what I'm talking about: I don't know a thing about container gardening. It is really different than in-the-ground gardening because of drainage and soil aeration and all sorts of other things. I have never been as good at keeping potted plants alive as I was at keeping the garden alive. I highly recommend You Grow Girl, which is such a useful book that you can forgive its embarrassing and poorly punctuated title. She has a lot of container-gardening tips in there, and just generally makes a lot of sense.

Ironically, Kelly herself will be calling me in 2 minutes to mach schnell me about doing my reading, and... yeah, clearly I haven't been. No one will call me "student extraordinaire." But gardening is so lovely to contemplate during the TWENTY-DEGREE weather we're having right now. Seriously, Ithaca, I get it, it's cold here. Point taken. Time to move on. I want to grow some rosemary already.

20: gloss on my lips, a man on my hips

My cousin was just talking about learning the Single Ladies dance. I sent her this link from Rachael Ray's talk show, from an episode in which she asked regular people to do the dance. Beyonce's mom is a judge! And then I had to watch it three more times because I love it so much, for some reason I cannot quite fathom. And now I have to share it with you. Hat tip to H., who originally found the video months ago.

I realized that clip doesn't include the winners, which I did find on YouTube:
But don't watch it if you don't want to question the judgement of Beyonce's mom.

19: bald-headed girl

I went to the public library today and got sucked into the DVD section, and somehow, the promise of unlimited free movies and TV shows makes me suddenly think I am actually a totally different person -- one who thinks she wants to, say, watch seven DVDs worth of some BBC drama about five generations of Europe's royal families. Or one who is so dedicated to her yoga practice that she will do four different DVDs in the space of a week. The lack of commitment makes me wild and crazy! Hooray for the public library!

I've been watching the first season of Sex and the City, some of which I have actually never seen, and lo, I am entertained. There are actually references in here that I didn't even know originated with this show, and some of it is so sweetly dated... messages on answering machines, no cell phones, late-90s glasses, giant blazers. Funny. And I am eating the Irish soda bread that just came out of the oven, and J. will be home in a few minutes. Happy Saturday night.

18: the dangling conversation

Yesterday, I went to get lunch and do some reading for class at a sandwich place before driving to Syracuse. The reading was boring and me and my incredibly self-disciplined brain were watching the other customers in the restaurant while we (the mouth and stomach that wanted to eat it, the hands that moved it back and forth, the brain that chose it and made the money to pay for it) ate our soup and bagel. I was really struck by these two people, a man and a woman, about our age, sitting at a table across the room from me. I'd noticed them sit down because of their size difference -- the man was really really tall and the very petite woman didn't even come up to his shoulder -- and because he'd pulled out her chair for her, something I've never been able to set a policy on for myself. Is it nice? Why do men only do it for women? Are you implying I am incapable of pulling out my own chair? Why did this become some grand chivalrous gesture when it is actually harder to sit down on something that is moving, thus making it potentially awkward for both the pusher and the sitter? Why am I overthinking this so much and not letting someone just do something nice for me? Etc. etc. Ah, that brain is a fun place.

Back to our two friends: They'd bought a really big lunch, with multiple sandiwches and soups and bags of chips, and stuff was totally covering their table. And they were eating very methodically, in total and complete silence. They were each looking around the restaurant, almost as though they were avoiding eye contact. It drove me kind of insane on their behalf, honestly. I was busy thinking up potential topics for them, such as "wow it is nice out today" and "this sandwich is good, would you like a bite" and "why is that crazy woman in the corner staring at us," but no amount of mental prompting moved them. Entire meal spent in silence, and then they got up and left.

I am still thinking about it, and about all the reasons they could have been quiet with each other. I won't go into the possibilities I've come up with, most of which are kind of morbid, but it made me sad.

In other news, is it possible to break your heel? Or maybe some part of the back of your instep? Because it felt fine going into African dance tonight, and there was no memorable traumatic event such as me falling on it or impaling it on something during class. After class, I noticed it aching a little, but then after going out to Mexican food with J and not moving it much for an hour or so, I almost fell over when I stood up. Ice is currently being applied, but ow.

17: from framingham to boston

(Neither Framingham nor Boston are in this post, I just couldn't think of a general Massachusetts song... This Thing We're Doing is really highlighting my lack of song-lyric prowess...)

I didn't wind up taking too many photos when we went to Amherst, mostly because we were involved in some group activities that didn't really lend themselves to photography. I know that Angie is right to say you don't have to wait for beautiful photo subjects to come to you, but I don't know, sometimes it takes a change in my usual routine to give me any desire to take out my little point-and-shoot. I frequently see things in my daily life -- the miraculous-seeming snowdrops poking out of the ground on my morning walk to the bus stop, for example -- that occur to me would be good subjects for pictures, but I don't have the camera with me. Maybe I should start carrying it around more.

Anyway, here are a few highlights from the morning after J's talk, when we went to the awesomely named Sugar Shack with a friend from his former department and his wife, both of whom were lovely. I didn't photograph them, but I did capture this guy: Baaaa. I am the biggest fluffiest most contented sheep ever and I rule this sheep-house, suckers. Baaaa.

The Sugar Shack taps trees and makes its own maple syrup. We tagged along with a group of kindergarteners who were on a tour and watched this guy demonstrating at the evaporation trough thing: Did you know it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup? It's true!

The steam from the evaporating water obscures the ceiling and makes the building look mysterious:

Then we ate lots of pancakes and syrup and all was right with the world.

16: porridge porridge, piping hot

Hello, I am tonight's host, Mushbrain. I have taken the place of Gwen this evening, because she has been staring at a computer and shoveling words on a screen around for about 12 hours today and I am forcibly keeping her from typing at the moment. Therefore, it is not her fault that this is a lame placeholder entry. Blame me, Mushbrain. This is Mushmouth, not Mushbrain. But Mushbrain is not picky.