Sandscapes

Driftwood with heads

A fantastically beautiful, cold day on Plum Island beach (Saturday). The 2nd head is my father's, who poked over to inspect the preview window on my camera, as I worked out the framing on some driftwood.

Newburyport Christmas

I'm not sure what's up exactly with 2 Christmas posts in a row. Maybe I just needed to provide something in contrast to the wacky lights of Somerville, with these more subdued, "quaint" windows decorated in Newburyport in the dead quiet of Christmas day.

This is just funny:

Somerville Christmas

The folks of Somerville take their Christmas decorations very seriously. Some to the point of causing traffic jams. Josh obliged to driving Sharona and me around on a tour to find the brightest corner, on this otherwise dark and uneventful day.

I don't celebrate the holiday myself, per se, but do appreciate the enthusiasm. Best holiday wishes, nonetheless, Christmas, Chanuka (past-due) or otherwise!

Garbanzo abstraction

I've been cooking a lot of beans lately. Beans rule. These are chick peas cooking in my crock pot, with a steamed lid.

And, on an unrelated note, if you're wondering about that oil spill, here's what the floor of our garage looks like. This is how we knew for sure that there's oil sitting below the house - it's not rainwater:

Boat with grass

A bit of November brownnness, but a clear day in Annapolis, where boats rule (yes, I'm still filtering out pics from Thanksgiving intermittently).

Jeni with Grandma

I'm bummed this picture is out of focus and overexposed - it's so hard to catch Jeni still for more than a few seconds, that it seems to be a matter of luck as to what comes out. In the end, I guess sentiment wins over exposure. This was over Thanksgiving, while working on play-doh peas.

Vanity

What a strange name for the thing in the bathroom that you use to wash your hands. Well, despite all the other crap of late, we did manage to find this super cheap replacement vanity, and only had to make 2 retrun trips to get all the pieces sorted out. This bathroom refurb started as an attempt to spiff up the house so we could sell it next year, but with the oil spill and all it looks like we'll get to enjoy it a bit first. YAY!

Chocolate mice

It's not been the greatest last week or so. We have an estimated 100 or so gallons of oil that we inadvertently dumped under our house...we have a lawyer involved...the cat needs dental surgery...among other things. Chocolate anyone?

These guys are a bit creepy (a la the Double T Diner in Annapolis). And, I'm entirely sure what they are, but they're covered in chocolate so who cares.

Moss and pine needles

Things look so different up close. This is the microcosm of textures found on top of an old railroad tie used to edge my in-laws' front lawn, with a backdrop of iris greens, trimmed-for winter.

Sarah, Crawling

She's 10 months old and is ready to move.





Well, sort of...

Play-doh Peas

Play-doh...always a good time. The peas, and carrots actually, were Jeni's idea (my 3-year-old niece), though I'll admit she had some help in rounding them out and getting them into this bowl. And I think Josh took this picture, which I liked for all the weird colors and reflections, and close up bit of lint. Yay, teamwork.

Killer Eclair

Scarier than a swamp creature...

...bigger than Josh's arm (after removing a portion serving 4)...

...and filled with the best cream filling I've tasted...

It's the Harold's* eclair, defying both reason and physics:

(photo credit: Justin)

*Harold's is a ludicrous deli near, exit 10 on the NJ Turnpike.

Thanksgiving

Ever wonder what 24 people around one table would look like? Here we are, eating Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday:



And, the force behind that dinner for 24, my mother-in-law, Estee, keeping her sanity - for the most part - and staying on top of her timing as the turkey waits to be carved:


I hope you all had a festive holiday, and that your clothes still fit now that the long weekend is over.

Pot

What, not what you were expecting?

Every day past

Over the last couple years, on and off, I've been digging through and scanning old slides taken in the 70s. That's me and my sister, Sarah, eating what appears to be frozen Howard Johnson's macaroni and cheese, among other things. We're kind of dressed up so maybe it was in fact a special occasion, but I don't know what, or if so why we ended up sitting in the kitchen eating like this.

(guest photo credit, I'm assuming anyhow, goes to my father)

Now that 20+ years have past, it's these weird little unspectacular cross sections in daily life, and the strangely familiar details that seem most intriguing - not the old tourist snapshots or other unusual happenings that usually have us getting out our cameras. I guess that's one part of my motivation with this photoblog thing.

Perspective is a strange thing, and I've way exceeded my word quota for a Monday.

Inch Worm

This guy attached himself to me in the woods in Lincoln, and might have made a useful map-measuring tool, if only we could get him to stay on course.


And, I bet he was surprised to be dropped off in a planter in a different zip code, after his ride in the car.

Fog on the Resevoir

So it's been raining for about a week straight here. I was just starting to get depressed about it, till this morning when the warm air turned all this wetness into this magical fog, out over an island in the Sudbury Reservoir.

Pickles, Beer and Baby

This picture came up this evening on the computer's random slideshow. If you are a fellow CMU-er you'll probably recognize this as a Pittsburgh Deli Company scene without needing too much more context? Since we were just there, I dug around and found it in the 2002 folder, and realized that it was taken at the PDC the last time we were in Pittsburgh, before our trip a week ago.

The 2002 occasion that had us there was Nate (my old roommate) and Stacy's wedding, and now in 2006 we met up with them in this same spot, with their adorable 6 month old daughter, Julia:


Crazy, huh?

Jamie and Cate, married

Saturday we had the pleasure of witnessing the wedding of Jamie and Cate - a wedding Josh can claim some small bit of credit in as one of the people who introduced the couple some 7 or so years ago. Congratulations and best wishes to them!

Here they are, successfully married, leaving the church:



And, for kicks, the cake and its fantastic orange roses:

Wet Morning

The things I do to slow myself down in the morning - like taking pictures of all the wet stuff on the lawn.

Enema anyone?

Fortunately, I don't know the person who assembled these items in this medicine cabinet. I hope to keep it that way.

Carnegie Mellon Nostalgia

Since we were in Pittsburgh, finding ourselves wandering around CMU's academic buildings for the first time in many years. Strangely, this trip coincided with parent's weekend instead of carnival - meaning that we had a, er, sober campus tour.

Very strange how things came back to me that I didn't even know I'd forgotten, like the lovely orange statue in front of Wean Hall.

And Justin captured his old vantage point from PH 2315, "Kleppernomics" (guest photo credit, Justin):

Ashley's 30th

This weekend had us in Pittsburgh, celebrating Ashley's 30th birthday. Here, at the Sharp Edge restaurant, with Belgian beers (and yes, I think that is chapstick):

And a more normal snapshot, with Saru:

Why Lizzy is Fat

Not that this is either recent or relevant to anything... but it does maybe help explain the 20 lb. cat question that periodically seems to come up:



She comes running at the sound of the whipped cream can. It's pathetically charming. And yes, she is currenlty on a diet - these are her "bonus points."

Our Pumpkins

No crazy Summers pumpkin this year... just a couple of silly gourds.

Josh was the proud winner in the "Most Perverted" category, with his reference to the animated will-maybe-someday-be-a-classic, "Rejected":

And the, heh, rear view:

(his was one of those linoleum pie pumpkins, so carving was beyond painful)

Mine isn't a pumpkin, but a winter squash. I'm embarrassed to say that I don't even really know what kind. Perhaps an orange hubbard? In any case, it is *not* a pumpkin. I went face-less this year:

Pumpkin Carving 2006

Saturday was the 8th annual Kriegel-Jacobs pumpkin carving event. This year was plagued by a regional shortage of pumpkins. So, several of us resorted to carving other fall vegetables, which was...different. Or pie pumpkins, which we suspect may really be made of linoleum.

Heather's reconstructed spaghetti squash:

Steve's pepper snowman, and Koos' pie-pumpkin conjoined twins:

The grand event winner, Susan's jack-o-quarium (she found a real pumpkin, even!):

And one carving pic, before my camera battery died: