Thursday, March 29, 2012
I've created a monster!
And I mean myself...succumbing to the dark side and playing around with Photoshop® instead of working. I was thinking about the kids and how they love to play and both seem to have an affinity for science and the natural world. They used to fight over the magnifying glasses until we got a few more. So, yes, this image is from two different shots on two different days, but it really portrays the two little brainiacs. Do I sound like a doting grandmother? Oh, well!
Fun at ECHO® Center
Anthony, Lucy and I had a really great visit to the ECHO® Lake Aquarium and Science Center a few weeks ago. Both kids are science-minded and play games that include lots of animal role playing.
Anthony was a baby owl for nearly a year. So we looked at the lake creatures, played on the hands on exhibits, patted a sea star, got their faces painted, generally had fun and didn't want to leave!
Ballet
Lucy is so serious and funny at the same time. She can get overshadowed by her brother sometimes, so I really glad we can spend alone time every week. She's definitely related to my family because she loves to eat out! It's one of our fun treats. Last week she said she wanted to be a scientist.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Bernie Buzz
One of my brothers, who shall remain nameless, told another sib that he thinks I live "in fairy land". I believe it's a reference to the fact that my blog posts are mostly fairly sunny and I don't use them to complain much. If you know me, you know I'm always ranting about something, but, on the whole, I like to save this space for stuff I like, not stuff I hate.
Some of Bernie's other priorities, of course, are access to health care, security for older Americans, veterans and the unemployed, investment in education and infrastructure, climate change and accountability for financial institutions. It's a lot, but should we say we're not up to it? That it's too hard?
And I LOVE Bernie's unapologetic liberal and progressive stance and am proud he's representing the small but great state of Vermont where we will soon have universal health care (a human right in every other modern country on the planet).
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Ahh, Balmy Boston!
Boston in January - it was an ideal after-holidays trip. Barbara and I took the Megabus from UVM's Royall Tyler Theater straight to South Station - 3.5 hours of relaxing, WIFI-connected non-driving. So easy and cheap!
Boston wasn't exactly balmy the first day, what with the crazy wind, but we braved the icy blasts to try out the Atlantic Fish Company on Boylston Street. I remember hearing somebody - forget who, of course - commenting that she thought taking pictures of your food was so-o-o self-involved. Hah! She must not know many photographers. Here, along with our cute waiter Sean (go figure - an Irish guy in Boston) are sauteèd calamari, seared swordfish w/ hand cut fries, lobster stuffed with crabmeat, and side of asparagus AND Brussels sprouts (wow), berry crisp and Key Lime pie.
We staggered back out into the wind after just stuffing ourselves and plopped into bed in a great little downtown hotel, the Hotel 140 on Clarendon Street. I love all the lights and faint city hum through the windows of an 8th floor room.
It was warmer the next day, but still pretty windy. We walked around all morning, shopped, paused for tea and generally enjoyed being in a real city. Over the three days of our visit we caught up with a number of Barbara's friends and former colleagues and, yes, ate and ate some more. We also took in the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Science, two great Italian restaurants in the North End, a comedy show at Improv Asylum and a lovely Spanish restaurant, Dali in Cambridge.
And, on top of all that, more shopping. High end window shopping, mostly, but we found the BEST hardware store on Charles Street with crammed aisles full of everything you could want, INCLUDING the cool nut grinder I had despaired of finding. The place was bustling - a hardware store on Charles St., two blocks from Boston Common. EVERYONE must go there.
Saturday WAS balmy, no kidding, 55° and sunny. Tout le monde was out and about, including us, strolling, sitting on a bench in the Public Gardens, sipping coffee. We went into a Starbucks (frustrated because we couldn't find a coffee place of Charles Street with a bathroom) only to learn something new. I asked a Boston cop (who was also waiting for that bathroom) why a city wouldn't have some public bathrooms around - the Gardens were teeming with people out for the great January weather. He told me the city had spent $250,000 EACH for thee state of the art toilettes on the Common, only to take them out a year later because of drug dealers, etc. messing everything up. They had a fee of 25 cents, were self-cleaning like the ones in Japan, but after a while no one would go in in because of dirt, damage, needles, etc. I know I'd pay more than 25 cents for a clean, handy W.C. Oh, well. Another thing he told me is that Starbucks provides health insurance for employees who work 20 hours! So, I had been pooh-poohing them wrong-headedly and will stop it.
Yes, that's ice on the Duck Pond, but it really was 55°! Back on the bus for the ride home to sleety, slushy Vermont. Great trip, great company.
Boston wasn't exactly balmy the first day, what with the crazy wind, but we braved the icy blasts to try out the Atlantic Fish Company on Boylston Street. I remember hearing somebody - forget who, of course - commenting that she thought taking pictures of your food was so-o-o self-involved. Hah! She must not know many photographers. Here, along with our cute waiter Sean (go figure - an Irish guy in Boston) are sauteèd calamari, seared swordfish w/ hand cut fries, lobster stuffed with crabmeat, and side of asparagus AND Brussels sprouts (wow), berry crisp and Key Lime pie.
We staggered back out into the wind after just stuffing ourselves and plopped into bed in a great little downtown hotel, the Hotel 140 on Clarendon Street. I love all the lights and faint city hum through the windows of an 8th floor room.
It was warmer the next day, but still pretty windy. We walked around all morning, shopped, paused for tea and generally enjoyed being in a real city. Over the three days of our visit we caught up with a number of Barbara's friends and former colleagues and, yes, ate and ate some more. We also took in the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Science, two great Italian restaurants in the North End, a comedy show at Improv Asylum and a lovely Spanish restaurant, Dali in Cambridge.
And, on top of all that, more shopping. High end window shopping, mostly, but we found the BEST hardware store on Charles Street with crammed aisles full of everything you could want, INCLUDING the cool nut grinder I had despaired of finding. The place was bustling - a hardware store on Charles St., two blocks from Boston Common. EVERYONE must go there.
Saturday WAS balmy, no kidding, 55° and sunny. Tout le monde was out and about, including us, strolling, sitting on a bench in the Public Gardens, sipping coffee. We went into a Starbucks (frustrated because we couldn't find a coffee place of Charles Street with a bathroom) only to learn something new. I asked a Boston cop (who was also waiting for that bathroom) why a city wouldn't have some public bathrooms around - the Gardens were teeming with people out for the great January weather. He told me the city had spent $250,000 EACH for thee state of the art toilettes on the Common, only to take them out a year later because of drug dealers, etc. messing everything up. They had a fee of 25 cents, were self-cleaning like the ones in Japan, but after a while no one would go in in because of dirt, damage, needles, etc. I know I'd pay more than 25 cents for a clean, handy W.C. Oh, well. Another thing he told me is that Starbucks provides health insurance for employees who work 20 hours! So, I had been pooh-poohing them wrong-headedly and will stop it.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
"Auntie" Dineen and I got to take the kiddles to The Toys Take Over Christmas by Patricia Clapp, a Vermont holiday tradition celebrating 21 years at the Royall Tyler Theater. Dineen used to love to go with her children who are now grown and she suggested the play. Well, it was a BIG hit and on the car ride home Anthony and Lucy were planning their costumes to "play" the play. Thanks, Dineen. We'll be there again next year!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
2011 Thanksgiving Trip
We are so lucky to be able to spend time with friends and family at Thanksgiving. For the past few years we've taken the whole week off to drive down to Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, a great trip, and this year my sister Barbara was with us, too. We had THREE Thanksgiving dinners this time, the first on Tuesday in Lansdale, PA with Megan's parents Kent and Sue and Kent's sister Donna who flew up from Houston. We love visiting them and had a great time, as always. We laugh enough on this trip to keep us in a good mood for months. Their sweet new puppy Peanut bonded with Ed right away - they were like this (X)!
Ed cooked his famous turkey-in-the-Weber, and the rest of us pitched in with sides, wine and pie, yummy. We did get in some games of Liverpool, our family game. If the picture of Kent looks familiar, it's because I used it last year! He was so busy counting turkeys at Whole Foods where he manages the meat department, that we didn't get to see enough of him. Hope you got some sleep on Thursday, Kent!
My family lived in King of Prussia, PA when it was still surrounded by farms - that would be 1956-57. My brother Rob wasn't born yet, but Barbara, Richard, Peter and I loved to go to Valley Forge and run around playing cowboys and Indians in the woods, peeking into the huts, and generally being rowdy. I always remember it as autumn with leaves on the ground. So when we left Lansdale we headed over there. They now have a wonderful education center and theater along with miles of trails, many monuments, reproduced soldiers' huts, George Washington's original headquarters, etc. It was just fascinating. I realized I did not know nearly enough about Washington when I read George Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow in April - a history buff's must-read.
Next stop: Seven Valleys, PA to see Ed's cousin Judy and her husband Pat who put us all up at their beautiful home. More, fun, wonderful food and, yes, laughter!
On the actual day of Thanksgiving we all headed over to see Ed's other cousin Debbie and her husband Ed in Bel Air, MD for...a Thanksgiving dinner extraordinaire!
Turkey, ham, unbelievable appetizers, side dishes and many desserts. That house was FULL of kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, you name it. There were THREE table set up in the house!
Ed's Aunt Joyce is in these photos. She's 82, going strong and is the last of his father's siblings.
We'd had enough great food to last us for weeks, but when we told Pat we wanted Maryland crabs, he plotted a great route for us to take over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore and down to St. Michaels, MD, "The Town That Fooled the British" and home of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. We had never heard of it, so we asked our waitress for the story. It seems that during the War of 1812 the townspeople got wind that the British were sailing up the Bay to attack their town, so they evacuated, shut down all lights and fires, then hung hundreds of lanterns in the trees away from their homes to fool the British into bombarding the "town" and harming no people or property. Pretty resourceful, right? And the crabs were great! Barbara had oysters topped with crabmeat, but Ed and I had fun cracking boiled crabs. Are we full yet???
On to Fredericksburg, VA. My Dad had asked his family to come down for a visit and, considering how many of us there are, a good number showed up. My family is used to me organizing them into photogenic groups, fortunately, so they all agreed to hold still on and off throughout the weekend.
For those of you who haven't met us all, here we are. Back row: Patrick, Gillian, Ed, Anthony, Richard and Henry. Front row: Rob, Barbara, Miriam, Dad, Najat, Sarae, Dick and Ginny.
So, we had yet another wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with amazing Moroccan food from our step-mother Najat, walks, swimming, Liverpool games, yes, lots of laughter and a delicious brunch on Sunday before our North Caroline family had to head home. Our cousin Janet and her husband Leon came over from Rockville, MD on Sunday and added another happy dimension to the group. I asked a waiter at the brunch to take one last big group photo (I can't resist, honestly, it's a disease!), but am glad I did because we all look great! And happy and well-fed.
Well, we're home now and remembering what a wonderful time we had with great friends and relations. By Sunday Ed was finally sick of the camera:
Ed cooked his famous turkey-in-the-Weber, and the rest of us pitched in with sides, wine and pie, yummy. We did get in some games of Liverpool, our family game. If the picture of Kent looks familiar, it's because I used it last year! He was so busy counting turkeys at Whole Foods where he manages the meat department, that we didn't get to see enough of him. Hope you got some sleep on Thursday, Kent!
My family lived in King of Prussia, PA when it was still surrounded by farms - that would be 1956-57. My brother Rob wasn't born yet, but Barbara, Richard, Peter and I loved to go to Valley Forge and run around playing cowboys and Indians in the woods, peeking into the huts, and generally being rowdy. I always remember it as autumn with leaves on the ground. So when we left Lansdale we headed over there. They now have a wonderful education center and theater along with miles of trails, many monuments, reproduced soldiers' huts, George Washington's original headquarters, etc. It was just fascinating. I realized I did not know nearly enough about Washington when I read George Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow in April - a history buff's must-read.
Next stop: Seven Valleys, PA to see Ed's cousin Judy and her husband Pat who put us all up at their beautiful home. More, fun, wonderful food and, yes, laughter!
Turkey, ham, unbelievable appetizers, side dishes and many desserts. That house was FULL of kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, you name it. There were THREE table set up in the house!
Ed's Aunt Joyce is in these photos. She's 82, going strong and is the last of his father's siblings.
We'd had enough great food to last us for weeks, but when we told Pat we wanted Maryland crabs, he plotted a great route for us to take over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore and down to St. Michaels, MD, "The Town That Fooled the British" and home of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. We had never heard of it, so we asked our waitress for the story. It seems that during the War of 1812 the townspeople got wind that the British were sailing up the Bay to attack their town, so they evacuated, shut down all lights and fires, then hung hundreds of lanterns in the trees away from their homes to fool the British into bombarding the "town" and harming no people or property. Pretty resourceful, right? And the crabs were great! Barbara had oysters topped with crabmeat, but Ed and I had fun cracking boiled crabs. Are we full yet???
On to Fredericksburg, VA. My Dad had asked his family to come down for a visit and, considering how many of us there are, a good number showed up. My family is used to me organizing them into photogenic groups, fortunately, so they all agreed to hold still on and off throughout the weekend.
For those of you who haven't met us all, here we are. Back row: Patrick, Gillian, Ed, Anthony, Richard and Henry. Front row: Rob, Barbara, Miriam, Dad, Najat, Sarae, Dick and Ginny.
Well, we're home now and remembering what a wonderful time we had with great friends and relations. By Sunday Ed was finally sick of the camera:
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