Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in obie119's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
4:48 pm	Berlin Wall I read a quote that struck a chord with me in the NYT coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling: "For many Americans of both political parties, 1989 seemed a wonderful example of the embrace of universal values that happened to be theirs, and some believed it was only a matter of time before all dictatorships crumbled before the same forces of strength, openness, economic liberalism and people power." If you are 13 when this happens, it means you've probably had maybe just a few years, maybe 5 at the most, of being aware that there is a world around you with history and different countries and problems and triumphs. So, that would put me at age 8, in 1984. What we learned about the world: Russia is evil, it's communist. There are mean people who divided up Berlin into two halves - they are so careful to keep them separate that they made a big wall and they have mirrors under the cars to make sure nobody is sneaking in. The word "Russia" was like a curseword; there was graffiti in my town saying "the only good Russian is a dead one." As a kid of half-Russian ancestry, I especially did not like this! So then when five years later, you see the whole Eastern bloc falling apart - and Russia itself not far behind - and on the TV you see all these nice German people celebrating and they are not much older than me...Well, you sort of think "Well, that was easy!" I think there's definitely a sense of optimism born of seeing only the tail end of the Cold War, only a movie's worth of A-Bomb fear before the happy ending and the credits roll. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
4:38 pm	Anniversaries Today is October 27th, the 5th anniversary of the Red Sox World Series win. A pretty big deal, though I think I could say that I experienced it in unique circumstances. See, yesterday was the 5-year anniversary of Nick breaking his back. So I spent the time of the game (a) watching it in the hospital with Nick (b) on a portable radio waiting for the train from the hospital (c) on a very empty train, with the portable radio and (d) walking around downtown Boston, finally watching the last outs with others, through a window of the Beantown Pub. I spent a lot of time after the accident trying to wish it away. There were a lot of "if onlys" that could have been created - especially if you deal in logistics the way I do. I am lucky in some ways that I don't seem to retain bad memories that strongly. In fact, I am almost surprised at remembering the actual details. This is the case also with hospital stay II in 2006, which was much worse and triggered some horrible followup anxiety in me a few months later. For whatever reason, I can remember the lighter moments - putting stickers on Nick's brace, travelling first-class Amtrak home for Thanksgiving because Nick could lie down in the fancy lounge - and the random moments: buying lots of apples for hospital visits so that Nick could have fresh food; the library giving me grace periods on the books I took out in a bit of a daze on the afternoon after the accident. It actually ended up that we took a random vacation day yesterday to enjoy the perfect weather. We went up to Massebesic for four hours of killer mountain biking. And don't think I'm not unbelievably grateful that Nick is able to ride on the mtn bike (road bike is too static for him; mtn bike keeps him from "locking up") - we didn't plan it for the anniversary, but it's nice to see how far we've come. I wish he didn't have to feel pain every day, but what can you do? The one learning that everyone should know: never go to a sports event/practice without a change of clothing. Skinsuits are no fun to sleep in! As for the world series win, frankly I have so many other memories and stories from the insane postseason of 2004. And the best one was of simple anticipation, on the afternoon leading up to Game 7. We need more Game 7s in baseball, really. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 16th, 2009
10:46 am	Obrigado to kale In our garden, kale is our zucchini, that vegetable that causes you to plot about leaving "gifts" for people. There's that saying that people in Minnesota only lock their doors in August because that's when people might otherwise gift them some zucchini. I was thinking about this because it was gross out last night and I stayed in to make kale soup. While I was packing it up, I saw from one of my food labels that we've been harvesting our kale since May 31st. Our kale plants are still going strong; they are enormous and gorgeous and (this morning) hearty even with a bit of snow on top. I never thought I'd like kale soup, and maybe like is too strong a word, but I do eat it for breakfast every day if I'm not having oatmeal. Last night I made it non-vegan for the first time, starting it out with a little bacon. To be honest, it doesn't taste that different - the mix of spices I use is so close to imitation bacon (paprika, garlic powder, salt, and a few other things) that it's not needed. Two nights ago, we had a sudden wondering as to whether it was bad for onions to be exposed to a hard frost - so I went out in my pajamas at 11:30 to pull them up, and discovered that most of them were leeks! Well, that is just great! I went to bed telling Nick about a potato and leek gratin pizza I will make as soon as I get the chance :) Last night I also pulled out the forgotten lettuce, maybe enough for one 2-person salad. We have no lettuce skills. So that's it for our harvest, except for one last cabbage and the indestructable kale, and our broccoli which is flowering itself into eternity. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
10:48 am	Providence! As usual I'm in between events again. One yesterday, big one on Friday. The latest stress is that it may snow on Friday. Ooops! So we may have to change our last-minute marketing to stress the "warm and cozy" factor. It actually seems like the perfect antidote to being cold - come inside and eat and dance and enjoy great music - I am looking forward to it even though tracking down the final silent auction prizes is a beast! Anyway: Providence. There was good and there was bad! I loooved the course, especially the Sidewinder-style "spaghetti bowl" where momentum took you flying up and down the course. I especially figured this was a space where comfort with the technical stuff would help, and that seemed the case. Unexpectedly, the start of the race was like this as well - on the preloop, it hadn't seemed technical at all but with 57 women all trying to ride it at once...well, that changes things! So I went from the last row at the start to about halfway up when we got to the grass, and passed a bunch of people in course of various falls, flats, and who knows what else. The race could have ended there, right? Anyway, the whole first lap went pretty well, until...hm, actually I don't remember when/where it was that my chain fell off for the first of three times! Yup, three times - after two years without chain drops, now it's happening all the time :( So I am working on getting a doohickey this week that was recommended by my buddy Chris Iglehart (I figure he should know!!) Anyway, each time my chain fell off, 3 people passed me. On the bright side, I was psyched that I'd been in front of them in the first place. On the booo side, now they were ahead of me! It was hard not to feel totally deflated by this stuff turning my race from *best ever!!* to just okay. Still, I'd wanted to beat 10 people and I beat 8 finishers (and 13 didn't finish, so if you listed me as 36th out of 57 starters that sounds even better). So now I have specific stuff to work on: *remember to push on the pavement sections. I mentally take offense to pavement in cross, and that's where people pass me. I should fix Oxo so I can get into the big ring, and use it, and stop being annoyed at non-dirt! *don't give up when passed. Bleah! *switch back to my argyle socks. My red stripe / blue stripe combination was not as fun, and a complete stranger came up to me at the start to bemoan the lack of argyle! :) The post-race was great - various friends had been cheering, and it was fun to catch up afterwards! And there was heckling. Oh yes, definitely. I should really doublecheck with Cute Rob (he seriously is just a cute guy) if he's okay with a bunch of girls chanting "go cute Rob!" as he rides by :) I'm married, he's married (I think!), it's all fun, and an appreciation of cuteness. My cx friend Christine was very excited by the cheering, there is great photographic evidence of us giving the lungs a workout after the race! Okay more later. But the morning sports were definitely superior to the afternoon sports aka the Red Sox losing, heinously and curse-of-Bambino-style. Or would it be the "curse of Hendu throwing out the first pitch against the Angels?" (Comment on this)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
12:09 pm	Gloucester! (day 2) It has been a crazy busy week. Most are here, really. The crux was having an event on Tuesday night and then a very early wakeup on Wednesday. I am so spoiled, as I usually get up at 8:30 - so having to be downtown for 9 AM without riding (it was raining, and it was a fancy meeting) was taxing! Oh woe is me :) Anyway, the event went great - I took over an event series that I'd conceived in the first, so it was all good. 20 people at an Ethiopian restaurant. What lovely food and hosts! So, Gloucester. I've missed it the first two years for various reasons, even feeling a snarky about it - it's so popular, but not even technical according to the reviews! Well, luckily a nice amount of mud on the course made for more running and sliding, which is just how I like it! On the down side, we'd had loud neighbor issues the next before, and long story short, I wasn't asleep until well after 2 AM. This on top of having just been sick on Friday, I was pretty woozy on the warmup. So, I felt a little more nervous than usual, but then had a fun chat with one of the officials, enjoyed my crap staging position, made some friends, and we were off! I felt pretty psyched to be on my new tires and in general, I had a blast on the course. I swear I was grinning like crazy on every downhill, and I was loving the run-chicanes and riding on the just-packed-enough sand. The whole race was just pure fun (I mean, in that heinous cross way) and it helped to have stretched enough that my back didn't hurt. I have read reviews since the race that mention a "sketchy off-camber downhill" off the pavement - after mtn-biking all summer, didn't even feel it. So it's sort of exciting, because I'm already feeling as good as I did at the end of last season, except it's only early October. Not that I'll get good or anything, but I look forward to seeing how much more I can put into the power. (unfortunately I got a little *too* excited and pulled my calves during a run-up workout on Wednesday - duh!!! but I'll figure it out!) (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
4:27 pm	Now that's it's October, it's time to think about Halloween! So I'm doing lots of online research about the Sesame Street martians. I found the following synopsis of one of the martian episodes, which cracks me up: 1985 — Ernie wakes up and is unable to find Bert. Ernie imagines that the Martians appeared in the middle of the night and asked Bert to join them in outer space. Bert then enters the room and informs Ernie that he was only in the kitchen making oatmeal. Bert leaves the room, and the Martians appear in exactly the way that Ernie had imagined. When Ernie yells to Bert asking what they should do about the visitors, Bert does not believe his story and replies, "Ask them if they want any oatmeal." I am laughing because it sounds like just the sort of dream I would have - and of course I was thinking of that in my last entry. Which, frankly, I was sad that no one seems to find it as amusing as I did. Either that or everyone's backing away slowly :) Anyway, all the Martian research is because I am working on a costume for the cross race that is on Halloween. There's a lot of barriers (hah!) to creating a costume for on-bike use, particularly one where you would get on and off the bike, and attempt to ride fast. From experience, I know that a witch hat slows you down more than believable, and a turkey costume gets stuck easily. So I have been designing something that hopefully won't get in the way, be terribly un-aero, or terribly hot. And a Sesame Street martian (aka "Yip Yip") it is. This cracks me up because I was terrified of them as a little kid. My biggest fear was that they'd come to my house and tickle me - these were my earliest nightmares, long foreboding sequences in which things were....not quite right...ending in abject martian-caused terror :) And yes, I could have been sprinting up Powderhouse Hill at lunch instead of riding to the craft store for materials...Pffft, I say! :) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
11:02 pm	Dreams, they complicate my life... Okay, so I was on a cross ride with some of the girls tonight, and dreams came up. See, I've been keeping a very loose dream journal since June, after an interesting conversation with Jenn C. I thought it would be interesting to recap a few short phrases from the notebook, because they are cracking me up, and randomness (and a view into my psyche) should be shared. So here's some highlights. Some of these I barely remember (I am at various states of consciousness when I write stuff down) All are from different dreams - parantheses are clarifications I have four kids, name Amelia, Prime, Blueberry, and Kevin (this was the dream that started it off) Jeff Van Gundy is head astronaut (former Knicks coach, I think) Cotton Mather!!! (I have no idea) Boat entry tickets available but there is poison ivy on them! (um, of couse!) Montana takes two days to hike across They (a hip artsy SF boutique) have a poison oak bouquet with one spring of poison ivy, and a dried berry arrangement that was poison ivy berries! Side dream that had lots of GERBILS. Lots of different gerbils, a cheerful hamster, and a rat covered in pee! There were neck guards but they were for all-star catchers At some sort of fairgrounds, Ellie Gordon gives us another gerbil Strange cyclocross race with no bikes in an old mansion vs. Paul Stone (6th grade crush) I'm supposed to get to STL for a Sox game but STL is 4 hours away! (the inaccuracy - barring interleague play - of this dream is killing me!) Hummingbirds flying in formation, like cars at Dodger Stadium (this may have been after a hall of fame visit) Colleen Herndon (friend from 4th grade) is a skunk, and sprays me Having a baby is easy! There is some bizarre movie everyone is watching where "number 6" is the killer Every time you see a movie, someone cuts down a tree (!?!?!) Carol (work friend) stayed at the bar for 12 hours and watched the Yankee game Sing Monteverdi (renaissance music!) while looking at wall map of Canadian maritimes I give the homeless people rainbow gloves in exchange. Everyone has me read Chicago (the musical) because it's genius Working at West Point graduation - official job is to hold a beef shank at the end of a row during processional A Heath Ledger lookalike is advertising himself as a Vegisexual Recreationalist (??) So there you go. I am not sure what to think, except that I am easily amused both in and out of consciousness :) I do have boring dreams too, but they are always fun because I'm seeing colorful and exotic birds that do not exist in real life, or I am in some class and I have forgotten to attend all semester. The usual stuff. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
11:52 am	first race of the year! Not that I'm a good cyclocross racer anyway (which is not a problem for me, it's just the way things are), but Quad Cross 2009 is just not my race. We just had a very active vacation in which we mountain-biked 7 days out of 8, so I thought I was in good shape. But nothing prepares you for 30 minutes of hell like actually being there and doing it. The course in Bedford is deceptive too - it has no major landscape features, but it is veeeery slow and hard work! So, a nice 10 mile ride to the race (yay for races in riding distance!), great to see so many women in our race, getting jittery at the start, then: pain! I got a lousy start which is rare for me - it's my biggest "strength" - and then it basically went downhill from there, although there were a few fun back-and-forths with other racers. I'm definitely better at the run-ups/barriers than I am at the power stuff. I couldn't get into my big ring which killed me on the pavement. The crowning moment was dropping my chain after the barriers - I was breathing so hard that I was having trouble getting it back on. To add insult to injury, that extra fiddling time was the ddifference between getting lapped and not, as I got nipped just before the final straightaway. But hey, the first one's out of the way. And I totally won the all-important sock competition. (Comment on this)
Friday, September 11th, 2009
10:23 am	Garden report I just finished this e-mail with a gardening "pen pal" in VT so I thought I'd paste it in here. I'm sort of embarrassed by our feral tomatoes :( Our tomatoes were a wash too, partially our own fault though as well. It was so hard to get out to the garden during the "rainy season" and since we're both outdoor people, every time it wasn't raining, we were out on our bikes! I planted our seedlings with thin stakes, which worked for a while, but the plants are so unwieldy that they need a cage or something - so a lot of tomatoes were sprawled out on the ground. The flavor of our Brandywines has actually been better than last year, on the few we've picked. Same with the Carbon, but I think we only got one. Haven't tried our plum tomatoes yet; I'm hoping to pick up a bushel tonight for sauce, but even our local farm is scraping to have enough :( Better luck next year! Plenty did really well though - our kale is never-ending. I assumed that it would bolt or flower or something, but we keep cutting it and it keeps producing leaves! Our cabbages are Alaska-sized and really delicious. We had a bumper crop of the best garlic you could eat, and we tried out onions this year, which were delicious. We had a great run of peas, and our raspberries are on their second fruiting of the year. Our broccoli ended up weird this year - it wasn't forming heads and we haven't gotten much yield, but what we ate was great. And then our potatoes - well, they keep coming and coming. I am going to dig up the rest of the patch this weekend and get them storing. They are absolutely delicious and I just love digging them up! It's really nice though, how you learn different things each year - like about tomato cages, and that peas just don't like to be transplanted. And of course it gives you a huge appreciation for farmers, whose livelihood depends on weather luck and on getting the other details right! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
12:03 pm	Back from holiday! We had a great trip to Maine and northern VT and NH! Right now I'm in the process of getting caught up at work and watching as new bruises form from a weekend of riding at the Kingdom Trails! We hit our vacation "goal" which was to see both loons and moose! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
11:50 am	An unexpected call Yesterday I received a call from the Caitlin Raymond International Registry, which is a bone marrow donor registry. Apparently, they have found a match for my bone marrow, a 13 year old girl with severe aplastic anemia (yeah, I looked it up; it's pretty awful). So I have consent forms to sign for further testing. I'm totally nervous as I'm not a fan of medical procedures, but excited to have the opportunity to help someone in this way. I totally get all goopy thinking about it. If any of my tiny audience wants to sign up, the website is http://www.crir.org/registerdonor.php - I did it at a town blood drive two years ago. The woman I spoke with yesterday said it's about a 1 in 50 chance of getting called ever. Last night, Hilary and I went to Restaurant Week (sort of) at Craigie on Main, and because they're all offal like that, their steak dish featured bone marrow. Very eerie - I went for the chicken instead :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
11:47 am	Fall is coming Yesterday on my way to work I smelled freshly-cut grass and it brought me back to pre-season field hockey practices in high school. It's amazing how the humidity and heat change the smells because I ride through athletic fields every day but it's not until now that they smell like double-sessions in late August. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 14th, 2009
4:56 pm	Interlude to NYC I'm leaving in two hours for a train to NYC - we will be there until 5 PM tomorrow, with one purpose, brunch with Grandma. Her health is looking threatening and it seemed a good idea to go down and say hello. She is so feisty that it's anyone's guess, but she's 92 and is not eating much. On the other hand, we didn't see her at July 4th because she was at "summer camp" ...anyway my cousin Seth from CO will be in town, and my favorite Sam and Hannah will be there. So it'll be a mini family reunion. And I can't be nagged about kids because Seth is higher up on the nag-scale! "get a wife" trumps "get some kids" any day :) (Comment on this)
2:58 pm	Party favors, and lots of baseball We had a week in there where: I saw the Sox on Tuesday (July 28th, one of the most painful games ever! Jim Rice Day, but a big blown save from Papelbon and a loss in the 11th) Went to the Hall of Fame on Friday Went to Oneonta (mythical former home of the Oneonta Yankees) Saturday Saw the Spinners on Monday ...and that of course led into the inglorious weekend series in NY. I did listen to both of the epic pitching duels, on Friday and Sunday. It was lovely to be back in the Leatherstocking region, which is the tourism-department name for Otsego County. Once you get on Route 88 from the Thruway, it's suddenly breathtakingly lush and green. Unfortunately, it was especially lush and green because it rained all day on Friday, quite heavily. So we went to the HOF first to check out the new exhibits. On Saturday it was beautiful - we biked in the state park where we camped. It was not challenging except it was so wet that grassy uphills were very slow, and there were huge mudflats to ride through. It was really pretty and we had some Raven interactions. We went down to Oneonta to talk with the people at the bike shop about rides for the next day. There was a street fair in process and basically all the stars were lined up for me to fall in love with the town. Lovely! Had lunch and ice cream and walked around, then went back to the park to swim and cook a delicious dinner. It's good we had a full day of summer fun on Saturday, because on Sunday it started pouring at 9 AM. Sigh. The forecasts all pointed to late afternoon rain, which would have been fine. Sigh. Well, we did have a nice breakfast in Oneonta, and I saw the baseball park. But it was a long, demoralizingly trafficky and rainy drive home - and it hadn't rained in MA. Double sigh. So we are planning to try again in October, and I'll do the Ommegang Brewery Race!!! We had a lovely week - baseball game, solo ride in Whipple, cooking night, dinner with my parents, and swimming with Linda and Naomi - and then on Saturday we went to a lovely party at Josh and Courtney's borrowed house in Newton. So idyllic as the lawn was green, the sky was blue, everyone was happy, and we were celebrating Josh's PhD. And there was an Ice Cream Pyramid from Cabots (60 quarts and unlimited toppings!!). We stuck around much longer than expected as it was such a good time, and we saw friends we hadn't seen for awhile. Headed to Mt. Pisgah afterwards for 2.5 hours of wild mtn biking, including great viewed and a calling Barred Owl! Sunday, I felt a little funny waking up, but assumed it was whatever. I was leading a mellow ride for Andrea's bday ride at Great Brook. But no mellow showed up, so I was out for my first Tom and Reenie ride. I did pretty well if I say so myself - finally decided to drop off after a bit of time in Russell Mills, but we'd done the whole of GB before that. Nick knew something was wrong when I passed up postride ice cream - in fairness, I'd had ice cream the past two days - and I was suddenly dead tired in the car on the way home. Like, slumped over. I wasn't surprised to need a nap after an intense-for-me ride, but this was unreal. Anyway, nothing needs to be graphic - but the next 24 hours was pretty hairy, with a stomach flu that hit like a truck. Nick was unscathed, but 8 other partygoers from Saturday got it. Apparently one more just came down with it. It was a beast; was out of work for two days and frankly am still a little weak. (Comment on this)
2:51 pm	Glorious potato harvest! I dug our first potatoes of the year on Tuesday evening, and they are so beautiful - they came out barely dirty, perfectly formed, and in an entrancing variety of sizes. Wednesday night dinner was fritatta!! Ingredients: Our own potatoes Our own onion Our own garlic Our own thyme and oregano Eggs from our meat farmer, very fresh! Nice cheddar cheese. It was seriously the best I've ever had, didn't even need bacon (and that is saying something!!) The smell of the onions and garlic frying was amazing. And I could eat hash browns every night if they are from those potatoes. Wow! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
11:21 am	Playing in the woods until dark Well, it's only now truly acting like summer, but Nick and I have been able to get out once or twice a week to ride in the woods after work. Last night we were in Whipple Hill, and there is so much to explore in such a small space. In fact, we only ride in half of it this time of year, because the easy half gets overgrown with poison ivy. So the nicest part of these evening rides, besides one on one time with my favorite person, challenging ourselves up the hills? Near the end of our rides, when the light gets dim, it is just us and the color green. It's almost oppressive riding in between the trees and the overgrowth, but mainly just cool. I always have to take off my riding glasses by this point; they're a little bit scratched and slightly foggy and it's the difference between seeing and not seeing. Even with them off, there's that delicious feeling of the light fading while you are (almost) alone in the woods. ...until we exit and find that it's not that dark out in the regular world. Of course, the other great thing about riding in Whipple is the llamas. There are either 7 or 11 of them, and they're spread out over a 3-acre overgrown property at the entrance. Very cool! (Comment on this)
Friday, July 24th, 2009
11:34 am	Social vacation! I took Tuesday and Wednesday night off from afterwork rides or other socialization (although work was quite social) and it really recharged me. Last night at K's, even though I was tired from not eating enough (or sleeping enough, watching Apollo 13 on Wed night had me all wired way too late!) I was in such a good mood hanging out. We had a small crowd due to the Marathon Sports race, but it was a fun group. We've been laying low, enjoying the mtn biking, staying out of the rain, spending lots of time in Boston (for work mainly, but also a great afternoon walk with Lori), and I took advantage of the no-social-time-enforcement to cook a lot on Tuesday and Wednesday. I made a huge carbonade (beer-braising brisket with tons of onions), chicken schnitzel, and little pork meatballs that are basically Chinese dumplings without the wrappers. I needed some cabbage and garlic for the latter, so I went outside and cut a cabbage and pulled up a garlic. Very satisfying! The gerbils loooove cabbage. It's very cute. They are not terribly tame at all but that is just fine. I bask in their cuteness. This weekend, party with everyone who's not away. Next weekend, off to the greater Cooperstown area! Just spoke with a bike shop guy from there - so friendly! He said town is already filling up for Jim Rice's induction. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
3:57 pm	Whoops! It's been forever, but I have a minute since there's a huge storm system going through and it appears I'll be marooned here for a while (though not for too long I hope, as it's our meat pickup tonight!). I am finally okay with the rain - we had our three and a half perfect days of sun (Friday had some thunder but was otherwise lovely!) and my mood has reset and sees today's storm for what it is. A summer storm, not the random endless June-mist of last month. Sure, my bike is getting soaked outside (sigh) and I'll probably have to bag my plans (a NEMBA meeting) but that's life in the summer. We did get out for an evening ride at Whipple yesterday, and we explored Lowell-Dracut on Sunday with a nice guy who brain-dumped about 5 years worth of trail knowledge onto us. so the rain isn't too bad. Our fourth was a major break from tradition...mom and dad were leaving for vacation on the 5th and J&S&H were going to NH for the 5th, so they came up here. It was fun, and definitely nice not to have to travel, but I did really miss my parents. Whoops, more later as I have a meat pickup! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
11:11 am	Gerbils! I have been seriously lacking in updating. But here are some thoughts. Gerbils!!! We adopted two adorable gerbils on May 30th, at the AGS gerbil show. Bet you never knew there was an American Gerbil Society. They are black and a father and son pair: dad is 5 months old and son was 6 weeks old at the time. Dad is Hobnob and son is Jaffa - they are black and they are soooo cute. It is hard to believe how cute they are. I guess I really missed having gerbils after a 15 year break! (I had gerbils from about age 10 through to senior year of high school). Baseball! We went home last weekend to see the new Yankee Stadium. Tammy joined us and Jon and Henry and my parents. The exterior has a lot more room to mingle, and the crappy businesses on River Street are still there, which is great - I'm glad they haven't gone away. The park itself is sort of monolithic. There is a Great Hall which I was looking forward to, but there's not much in it - it's just big. Everything about the experience is very comfortable - lots of bathrooms (with the radio broadcast on so you don't miss anything - Fenway should learn from this!), copious food choices, comfortable seats with great sightlines, and the open-concourse feeling where you are not closed off from the game when you go to get food. So that is all really nice, plus the garlic fries are very good. But, it is all sort of impersonal feeling. Yes, I'm used to the claustrophobic nature of Fenway since I am there more than any other park these days. But I loved the feeling of sitting in the seats at old Yankee Stadium. I do truly love a big stadium, if it's got personality. The old Yankee Stadium did - sure, the 1970s renovation was crappy, but the place was big, happy, cheerful, and didn't take itself seriously. Like a giant golden retriever or something. The new stadium strives to be Meaningful and Historic - all while also seeming very corporate and staid. Get some soul, come on! However - I did love having the facade around the whole stadium. That looked really great. I guess when it comes down to it, I never really thought that a new stadium was needed. And part of me is irritated that the Yankees had to get their stadium in the same year as the Mets, who had much more need for a new place. Talk about stealing the thunder! Anyway, it was still a great time, and a perfect day for a ballgame, and a fun game. I had fun teasing Henry and changing the words to Take me out to the Ballgame. I had him root root rooting for the elephants, crocodiles (because otherwise they'd eat you!), french fries, gerbils, and who knows what else? He conked out by the 7th or so and was fast asleep. In the midst of chatting with Tammy, I noted Nick was fast asleep as well. Well, it was sort of lulling. I was back at Fenway on Tuesday night with Jess, Becky, and Bill to see Sox/Yankees. We were in the bleachers, which I don't like as much as the grandstands, but we were lucky in that the rain was not too bad. It was like being in the produce department of a supermarket - we were constantly being heavily misted-on. It was the coldest June game ever though - I had two t-shirts, a wool hoodie, and my heavy spring/fall work coat! But it was great to be squeezed into lovely old Fenway. Plus, I used the "Hot Nosh" machine under the bleachers - the owner of the company hangs out by the machine to answer questions. The machine actually cooks your food on the spot with a convection oven! It is bizarre! But I was interested to hear that the owner is moving now from just sports environments to hospitals as well. I think this is great! Yes, hospitals may have Kosher options once you're admitted, but for the ER it could be a godsend. When Nick went in for the second time (2006) we went in at noon and he wasn't admitted until dinnertime. Everything had happened so quickly that I don't think I had time to bring food - and I imagine this is often the case for people, so the machine is a perfect idea. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 29th, 2009
12:04 pm	my poor bike... ...getting all wet... Anyway, I've been bad at updating for my invisible audience, but, here's highlights of the past few weeks: Vacation! Stopping in Iceland on the way to London - very cool. Very cold picnic while trying to stay awake on the first day - exciting shopping mission for picnic food! Posh Ruby Wedding party for Nick's parents The world's steepest slide, in Victoria Park A hike with the dog to lovely Ilford Drinks with Al at the Green Tree Seeing a Tawny Owl in the middle of Bath Wandering through new parts of Brizzle, then seeing Rose and Dominic and their lovely kids...oh and I ate Chestnut Loaf (!) Nick mom cooking me all sorts of goodies (!) Relaxing at the V&A courtyard - we had perfect weather every day except one Seeing Oreo! Finally going on the London Eye A very relaxing Tea at Fortnum and Mason Actually eating a decent meal at Heathrow (!) Swimming in Iceland Hot pots in Iceland HORSES HORSES HORSES HORSES! (in Iceland) Seeing millions of cool wading birds - godwits, oystercatchers, turnstones, and more - while riding the horses Icelanders love Bearnaise sauce Walking around downtown Reykjavik at sunset - 10:30 PM Puffins! (and Guillemots) the world's most romantic garbage dump Friday evening swimming Watching the sun set over the water Sleeping with hats pulled over our eyes since it was light all night Morning swimming! The Blue lagoon! Playing with hair on the plane! MJ & Adrian were dropping off Adrian's mum at the airport, so we got a ride home, and then we all went to the Bollywood cafe for dinner. Yum! Other highlights: Last weekend we had some super mtn biking - on Saturday we went with MJ, Adrian, and Linda through Estabrook Woods (and a big swamp!) and Carlisle Conservation Land up through to Great Brook for ice cream, then found our way back through different trails. It was a lot of meandering and tiny trails and wildflowers. We had sausage afterwards. I mowed the lawn, which had grown wild while we were away! This is only the second time we've used the gas mower for the whole shebang - there was no way our pushie would cut grass that high! On Sunday, we went to Carrie's grad party and saw lots of bike friends. It started pouring quite amazingly - first summer downpour of the year. Monday we were tired but did more mtn biking - Foxboro, and didn't get AS lost! Mini Vassar & friends reunion cookout with Mike, Jess, Martin, Janice, and Lori K! Khoury's is going great - we had 75 runners for the "welcome to Casey's" party, and Aileen Mason and a bunch of real Old School came last night. Linda and Mark married and have a nine-month old! And then I noticed Linda's age on the sign-up sheet - 55! (and yes, she was pregnant and gave birth). They all look spectacular, I would have never guessed if I hadn't seen the signup sheet! Craft night was this week as well - very fun. My beloved 8th grade teacher was mentioned in the Times yesterday - still working! I sent her a nice note - probably will be covered by a sea of crazy e-mails about her banning hugging at her school. (Comment on this)