I like dirt.
Last night, Nick and I went to a birthday party in Little 5. It was here that I discovered that Nick's co-worker Scott had been offering him tomato plants for several weeks, and Nick had failed to mention said offer. Whaaaat? Of course this could not stand. We drove straight from the party to pick up the plant at 11pm last night. After work today, I went straight to the garden to give the new addition a proper burial. Or, no... um, new home? I don't know what the terminology is, but there is a live tomato plant in the garden now.
I used the occasion to take a
few photos of my favorite plants at the moment. We had more lettuce (red, green leaf, and romaine) than we could eat last month but it's looking pretty sad now due to the heat, so there aren't any pictures of that. Ditto on the fennel and dill. The basil, thyme, oregano and mystery plants are doing great, though! Mystery plants are probably pumpkin, but that's another story.
The link above also directs to pictures of our latest camping/hiking adventure and some other domestic stuff I was pleased enough with to take pictures of. Namely a key lime pie (my first!) and a t-shirt "
refashion" that was actually successful.
Anyway, I have way too much work to do so I'm going to keep this short. I probably won't post much before or during my trip, but the trip should be good blogging fodder. Take note Blogger, and be sure to beef up your servers before August 1...
Mr. President
Apparently, the
White House has an official photostream on flickr. They're fun to flip through and an excellent example of how tech-savvy this administration is. I mean, is there a networking site they haven't infiltrated?
Regardless, I like the caption posted with this photo:
"At center-right is the hieroglyphic that the President comment on saying it looked like him."
Gramatically incorrect, but amazing nonetheless.
Thanks to Kate for the heads up.
Reese Brink: wedding and more
Picasa to the rescue! This should work as a temporary work-around to Blogger's crotchety mood this morning...
This is the bridal party from Lauren's wedding. No, we are not huffing fumes from the bouquet, we are taking sips from our cocktails. Lauren was the mastermind behind this fantastic "Boozy Bouquet" idea. Basically, the base of the bouquet is a margarita glass, and the flowers were arranged (by us!) on top of a lid for the glass. We fitted the lids with some straws and the rest is history. Genius, eh?
Myself and the beautiful bride:
The happy couple:
Speaking of better pictures, I can't help but brag a little about the bachelorette party... Of course, there were the usual things: wedding/marriage-themed games,
gratuitous penis*, lots of good food, a bar-centered scavenger hunt, etc. BUT. My favorite part of this party was the theme. Yes, there is always a theme with me, haha. This one was executed pretty well, though. Behold:
The "Ugly Bridesmaid Dress" theme. The girls were instructed to procure a dress from their local thrift store, or use one they had lying around. As such, we got a spectrum of "ugly" but hot damn if we didn't stand out in a crowd! It made the scavenger hunt a lot more interesting.
Ok, I think that's enough of embarrassing my friends for one day. Until next time...
*Cartoon penis. Just trying to get some more hits on the ol' webpage ;)
Business Time
Well, it has been an exceptionally busy blogging hiatus. Starting in mid-March, my weekends have been completely stacked. This looked something like (in order of appearance): a ski trip to Utah, a bridal shower for Shosh, Matt and Dayna's visit!!! and Noelle's wedding!!! (here in Altanta), Adam's wedding in New Orleans (and the resulting brush with swine flu, yuck), a surprise party for Nick's birthday AND Lauren's bachelorette party in one weekend (both of which I had a hand in planning), Mom's visit!!!, and finally,
Lauren's wedding in SC, in which I was a bridesmaid/ baker/ lighting engineer/ decorator/ giddy friend :)
Holy potatoes, that's a lot of social crap. There was not one dry weekend from mid-March to late-May. It was tons of fun, and I'm so glad it's over!
Now, I can focus on my work, my (much improved!) garden, and lazily making plans for my upcoming trip to Europe.
Trip what-where?!
I am going to France, Switzerland and Germany next month!!! As my first official trip off of this continent, I am SO incredibly excited! The impetus came when my abstract was accepted for presentation at
Computational Neuroscience, a conference which is in Berlin this year. That means, this is technically a business trip which ensures that the July 18th-24th portion is paid for. Lucky thing too, because my dollars are not liking the look of the exchange rate lately...
Well, there is much planning to be done, and I should get to it. I am hoping to write more here this month, but blogger seems to be hating my photos at the moment so we will see how this goes down. Until then, bon weekend!
Postscript
I want to make one of
these... too bad I don't have a fireplace. Desk clock maybe?
Spring is in the air
Did some weeding in the sun this afternoon. What's left is last years fennel and scallions... and the rest of the garden to weed. I'm really looking forward to planting some fresh basil, maybe some cilantro, definately oregano... hooray for the long, beautiful growing season in GA.
Edit: Apparently blogging straight from the phone works better in theory. This is my second try, the first time there were password issues and it didn't post anything. That now fixed, This entry got through but the picture only uploaded halfway. Sigh. Fixed now.
So.
It's been awhile.
I got
a bike!
It's been a couple of weeks now, and I'm happy to report that I'm riding it quite a bit: to work, the farmer's market, for fun, etc. It's not the cushiest ride (read: I'm not used to riding regularly and will probably get over it) but it's super, super light and zippy. Of course, this is my first road bike and the only one I've ever owned that is the correct size, so take my recommendation as that of a biker noob. A very, very happy biker noob!
In other news, work has been keeping me pretty busy, and I am actually very pleased with this situation. I am slowly learning to recognize that not having enough to do makes me antsy, and I am more productive on each task when I have several things going at once. Boredom is not my friend. This is good news for my current situation. I am: teaching (lab TA), writing (draft #2 of the same paper I've been working on for.ev.er), experimenting (proof-of-concept type stuff, gearing up for real experiments), and doing lots of background research to help with experiment planning. I'm in a nice place in my studies right now where I'm finally feeling confident and knowledgeable enough to use the freedom my NSF fellowship grants me. I'm starting to ask my own research questions, and design experiments around them. It's been fun... hopefully something comes of it :) I'll keep you posted.
I've also been loving the cold (all relative) weather for knitting. I
FINALLY finished this hat after working on it for what seems like months and days and years and decades. It was a really fun project, my first using the doubleknit technique, but daaaaamn small needles will suck up your life. Soon after putting that down, I started my first-ever sweater and I am so happy to report that it's coming along nicely. The
yarn I picked out is probably the best thing ever, so you should be really, really jealous.
Speaking of unbridled jealousy, you're also envious of all the amazing food I made this weekend. I started the week with almond cupcakes with chocolate mousse frosting, which meant by Friday the cupcakes were gone and I now had an abundance of mousse. Knowing no other way out, I baked cookies. Now, I have mousse-filled peanut butter oatmeal choc chip cookie sammiches. Yeah. And dinner tonight! Nick helped me with
this amazing recipe from my new favorite cookbook, Veganomicon. Skip the bad photography and go straight to the recipe. Or, if you don't believe me, take this freakishly accurate description of the mole sauce from the blogger cited above:
"But let me just tell you: it's totally worth tracking down the cookbook just for this recipe. Holy motha. And I didn't even use the GOOD shit when it came to the a) chocolate and b) chili powder. I used Trader Joe's semi-sweet chocolate chips and shitty 99-cent chili powder. And yet, AND YET, I wanted to fill my bathtub up with this and roll around in it buck-nekkid except for maybe a small hat made out of tortillas. I can only imagine what would've happened if I had splurged and bought some fancy chocolate and some good chipotle chili powder. My nipples probably would've caught fire."
Yeah.
Aw, Republicans. Look what you made me do.
Last night's
The Daily Show has inspired me to post a political opinion. I'm not prone to this, but hey, I guess you have to start somewhere.
Jon Stewart's interview of Gov. Mike Huckabee can be
seen here. It's most of the episode. The part that was so inspirational to me is the last segment,
seen here. Jon Stewart brings up gay marriage. Huckabee does a piss-poor job of defending the social-conservative bigoted stance, which is understandable. What is really upsetting, however, is that Jon Stewart seemed to be validating Huckabee's religious undertones by arguing the biblical slant. Yes, he had some good points (polygamy anyone?), but I think using these arguments will hurt the cause in the long run.
Ahem. Our wonderful, long-surviving government claims to rely on a separation of church and state. Unfortunately, marriage is a religious institution that has been written into government policy, tax code, etc. This is causing a good deal of confusion.
Get. It. Outta There!
If Mike Huckabee wants to keep the word "marriage" then fine, you religious nut you, have it. Take it to your churches where marriage ceremonies are performed. But in this United States, ALL law-abiding citizens need to have the same rights. PERIOD. Of course, here I am referring to those rights of civil union, including tax benefits and adoption rights. It's as simple as separating "ordained by god" (which of course, isn't a right) from "accepted by law" (which of course, shouldn't be religiously biased).
This, to me, seems like a pretty obvious course of action. I would expect that there is nothing in the bible about hospital visiting rights or tax benes, and there is no special diction here for Huckabee to defend. So end of discussion, everybody is happy.
Okay maybe not everybody. I can see that raising kids/adoption is probably the root of all this hubub. Many people are dedicated to the traditional family structure and see the current legal definition of marriage as protecting that and the proverbial children. Well, nuts to you guys, your argument stinks. Traditional family structure sure doesn't guarantee a happy childhood, nor does non-traditional family structure guarantee a miserable one. Let me quote an amateur
op ed I stumbled across:
"Adoption is not simply a smart alternative to parenting without stretch marks. It can take years and costs thousands of dollars to adopt a child, and the emotional price is often greater than the monetary one. People adopt because they love children, and because there are no shortage of children who are in need of a better life. No one fills out all that paperwork to undermine society, and yet some feel that’s exactly what will happen if we allow homosexuals to raise kids.
Parenting, whether it’s by adoption, foster care or nine months of pregnancy, follows a single goal: to raise good children and help give them a bright future. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, and there is no evidence to suggest gay parents will raise an army of gay children. Straight parents seem to raise plenty of homosexual kids as it is, yet no one is condemning Dick Cheney’s fatherhood. These are not issues of family or children; these are issues of civil rights and fear, and they’re issues many thought ended in the 1960s."
In this regard I think Jon did a good job. There really is no counter-point for "a loving gay family with a financially secure background beats the hell out of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline any day of the week". Priceless.
Well, that's my ferocious 2 cents. I hope you enjoyed it.
In other news, the big presentation went surprisingly well and I am happily contemplating my next course of action. Watch out crabbies, I have experiments in mind...
White beaches are hard to photograph.
Not a lot to say. For now, I'm enjoying this photograph, and that's enough.
We will miss you, so very much.
"But Margaret, perhaps more than any other person I’ve ever met, she just rubs off on people. You look at her, you admire her, you absorb a bit of her attitude, find it good and true and useful, and carry that bit of her off with you. I plan on seeing her regularly, living inside everybody who ever loved her. That’s not just a comfort. It’s a promise."
