A Belated Valentine to My Media Boyfriends

Ah, unattainable love.

Ira Glass was my first - I refer to him as "My Radio Boyfriend". That voice...that wit...those glasses...those sideburns...that salt and pepper hair...be still my beating heart! I try to see him whenever he comes to town, alas it's only every couple years or so. (Disclaimer: Mr Glass, I'm not a stalker - I just think you're handsome)



And then there's Mo Rocca. I'd been listening to him for a while on NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me", but hadn't actually seen a photo of him until quite recently. He's also a commentator on CBS's Sunday Morning show which is a nice way to begin a lazy Sunday morning. Darn it, he's a looker too!


My latest guilty pleasure is the new Dr. Who. I never watched it growing up because it looked scary and stupid, but the new version is fun. Sometimes I just like an evening full of monsters and CGI, and I never get tired of watching that blue phone booth spiral through the galaxies. Christopher Eccleston is superb as the first Dr., but he's not really my type, though we both have ears that stick out. At the end of the first season he's regenerated into the slightly spastic David Tennant who has great hair, a nice brown and blue pinstripe suit and (not often enough) glasses. Yay!

HMMMM! I see a trend. Do you?

"Unsettlingly Real-Looking Felted Bacon Scarf"

From Etsy seller chrischunski:



Overheard last night on my walk home: "Blah blah blah I couldn't believe she said that, that really fried my cheese blah blah blah". WHAT???

February 5th: Super Duper Tuesday, Fat Tuesday & Shrove Tuesday

Zowie, busy day! I voted, I did nothing to celebrate Mardi Gras, and in a nod to my Canadian heritage I made pancakes for dinner for Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake Day. If I observed Lent, I would join my neighbors by eating pancakes because they're typically made with rich, decadent ingredients like eggs, flour, milk & butter. I'm not sure where maple syrup fits into the scheme of things. My pancakes weren't even all that decadent - I used whole wheat flour, egg whites & fried them in canola oil spray. Plus I ate them dry sans syrup - it was dinner after all.

Well, um, my current regimen of saving money (damn you Boden with your sassy spring fun skirts!), eating healthfully, working lots of extra hours, digging into my NetFlix queue, and actually making it to the gym regularly after a hiatus with consequences does not make for exciting blog posts. Wow, nope! I'm not even going to try.

Pretty photos from a vacation in September coming soon.

Photo: Kitties at Knossos, Greece. Yeah, this has nothing to do with anything but it's cute and one of my relatives had some sad kitty news.

Snow Day YES!!!

I have a snow day, la la la! First ever in the history of my institution - I had to check three sources because I didn't believe it. I'm extra happy that none of us have to go because I probably would have been the only one to show up anyway because I'm the only one who lives in town and doesn't have kids. Clearly the current President of my school (unlike her predecessor) actually gives a shit about our safety and well-being. And speaking of poor leaders, tonight I'm going to hear Madeleine Albright give a talk about her book Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership.

I Love a Mexican Fiesta as Much as Anyone but. .

When I found my apartment on Craigslist I was instantly attracted to the orange walls in the kitchen, not to mention the fact that it had a pantry, two porches and a china cabinet. It was exactly what I wanted in the neighborhood I wanted at a price that we could afford. The apartment was great, although it needed to be repainted. I painted the two front rooms before we moved in, thinking that I'd get to the bedrooms eventually (I painted them this summer) but that I'd never repaint the kitchen because orange walls are really fun and awesome.

I changed my mind. While the orange was novel and sunny and bright for a while it began to grate on my aesthetic sensibilities. Not only was it like Mexican fiesta all the time (helped by the Mexican oilcloth) but the transition from the soft green middle room to the school-bus yellow kitchen really irked me. Plus I needed a change. Other things in the house (and in my life) had been recently rearranged and it felt like appropriate timing. So in a weekend I went from Velveeta to Benjamin Moore Vanilla Ice cream. Although it comes across as a little bland on film I'm happy with my mini kitchen makeover- the kitchen feels larger, airier and calmer. And with my tablecloth selection and colorful dishes I have no lack of color. Now I'm thinking about repainting the front living room this summer because the white I chose is too close to the color of the white trim. Stay tuned, ha ha!

Before:



After (yes, strangely crooked):

Human Tetris

The Beginning of the Rule Breaking

When I taught photography we had a couple rules about what our students (8-15 year olds) could choose as the subject of their summer photo essay project. They'd spend 5 weeks shooting, developing and printing a total of five black and white photographs which would then be arranged artfully on poster-board with double-stick tape and hung in the art gallery. Many of the kids took remarkably beautiful photographs, and it was always exciting to see how some of them progressed from the first roll of film through the last. Topics that usually produced dependably nice results were portraits, "Places Without People", "Shadows", and "Reflections". We also had rules about what students could not choose.

1. No pets. Too wiggly. Cute, but not artistic. William Wegman (I love you, but dogs are not a good topic for children)
2. No birds. Too small. To quick. Ho hum.
3. No sunsets. Sunsets are cliche, and they're really boring in black and white.

That said, my camera is still in the shop and while I've been busy with parties, movies, dinners, art projects, baking (please no more baking for a while), and meeting new relatives I don't have anything I particularly feel like writing about. I'm breaking my rules and posting a couple winter sunsets from the sun-room of my old apartment in Medford.

Happy Snowstorm!

Or at least it was until I wiped out on the sidewalk because I couldn't see the ice under the pretty fresh snow. If I had seen me fall (and chances more than a few people did because traffic was all backed up) I would have made that wincing "Oh I hope you're ok and I'm kind of embarrassed for you" face. I was ok, although I realized shortly when I felt an unusual draft that I had a quarter-sized hole in my brand new thick black tights, a messy messy knee, and blood on my favorite new skirt. I thought about taking a photo of my wounded knee and leaving it on the non-shoveler/sand/salter's door. But I can't because the LCD panel on my new camera broke last night and because looking at blood makes me giggly and I'm sure I couldn't stay still enough to focus. I think I slipped in the same place last year - maybe I'll walk on the other side of the street from now on. Hopefully I can get through the winter without breaking anything else.

Alba the Bioluminescent Bunny

Poor bunnies - I doubt this research is going to save any lives. Here's the article. A different kind of glowy in this glowy holiday season.

Strange Fruits

I love it when Trader Joe's has a variety of dried fruit that I've never had before. Last week I found dried persimmon:


And freeze-dried mangosteen:



I've had fresh persimmon before so that one wasn't much of a surprise. It's nice because it's not as sweet as some dried fruit. The mangosteen was pretty exciting. Although I'd heard of Mangosteen I've never eaten it or even seen it. Boston is not exactly a fresh tropical Asian fruit hub. I'm sure that fresh mangosteen is an entirely different experience, but freeze-dried mg. is REALLY GOOD! It's tangy and creamy (and crunchy due to it's current state) and the seeds have a mild nutty taste.

This is what the package looks like - notable because it shows what fresh mangosteen looks like: