Junebug B

Last but not least...

2008-08-28T21:55:00.003-04:00

Today was my last pick-up at Lindentree Farm, and it was a good one! We got cantaloupe, watermelon, green peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, carrots, leeks, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, three types of tomatoes, corn, basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley, sage, garlic, jalapeños, and beautiful wildflowers.

It was great to be back on the farm and to say goodbye to the farmers, Moira and Ari, and enjoy a beautiful afternoon. I know there are CSAs in NJ, but it will be hard to beat my experience at Lindentree.

Northampton, one more time...

2008-08-28T20:53:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite places in Massachusetts is Northampton. I decided to take the day and head out there to do some new things and some of my favorite things. Sylvie went to Smith and has always told me how beautiful the campus is, and it's right near downtown Northampton. So I decided to head to the Smith College Art Museum and the Botanic Gardens on campus. I'm glad I tried something new. The Art Museum was wonderful. The highlights included an installation of a Sol LeWitt wall drawing that was very cool.

I couldn't take any photos in the art museum, but I made up for that with tons of photos in the botanic gardens. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed exploring all of the different little rooms.

Here are some koi in a pond with pots of orchids reflected in the water:

Here's a view of one of the workbenches:

Some plants from my favorite continent:

One of my favorite things in Northampton is Haymarket Cafe, and I indulged in two of my favorite things: a real iced chai with soy milk and their Baked Tofu sandwich. I'm getting hungry again just thinking about them. If you're ever in Northampton, please seek this place out and indulge yourself. Everything is good, but these two things are especially delicious.

On the way home I had the chance to stop in Worcester and have dinner with Christa. I'm so glad I got to see her again before heading out to NJ. It was a great day!

Plant Life

2008-08-27T20:13:00.000-04:00

Summer is always a fun time to watch things grow, and there have been some interesting blooms showing up around here lately. First of all, another one of my mystery plants decided to bloom. This is the plant that is referred to as my Dr. Suess plant because it looks like something from a Dr. Suess book. Every few months is looses all of its leaves and then grows a little more stem and then more leaves show up, but this is the first time that blooms have shown up, too. So if anyone out there recognizes this plant, let me know what it is. Maybe there's something in this Cambridge air that's good for the houseplants. We'll see how things progress once they make it to NJ.

The other thing that's been blooming around here are the morning glories! And yesterday the first blue one opened up. I hate to play favorites, but the blue ones really have a special place in my heart. Here's the first big blue bloom:

Sylvie and Miriam get hitched!

2008-08-26T20:29:00.005-04:00

This past weekend two of my favorite people got married. Sylvie and Miriam had a beautiful Jewish ceremony outside at the Essex Room in Essex, MA and then it was followed by an amazingly fun reception with a great band, good food, so much fun dancing and good friends. The whole event was so beautiful and I was happy to be a part of their special day.

Here's a photo of me and Sylvie with our pretty bouquets:

I met Sylvie while getting my Library degree at Simmons, so as you can expect, there were plenty of librarians present. Here we have a photo of all of the librarians in the room, some of us caught in the evil act of shushing:

Since the wedding was early in the day, the whole party was over by about 6:15 and some of us decided to meet up in Saugus for a round of mini-golf and some ice cream to finish off the evening. It was great fun and it was a great chance to hang out with some of these folks before I move to Princeton.

As seen in Harvard Square

2008-08-22T09:35:00.005-04:00

One thing I will miss about Harvard Square is all of the street performers. Well maybe not all of them, but some of them. I recently came across an upright player piano playing "Dames" from 42nd Street with a guy singing along. The question of course is "How did they get that piano there?"

Last Day at Harvard

2008-08-21T18:27:00.006-04:00

The above photo is of a gate at Harvard.
The quote seemed appropriate.

Yesterday was my last day working at Harvard. It was a bittersweet occasion. I really enjoyed working with all of my colleagues there, and I'm happy to say that I finished the section of the project that I hoped to finish. It was sad to say good bye to so many people. Today I spent most of the day packing to move, and getting ready to go to Sylvie and Miriam's wedding this weekend.

Boston check list

2008-08-20T17:54:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I made a little list of things I wanted to do before leaving the Boston area. Last Saturday, the day I got home from Cape May, I had the chance to check off 3 of those things. Matt and I had an amazing afternoon and evening.

It started out with a trip to the North End, which is the Italian section of Boston. We had lunch at the Original Pizzeria Regina and then headed to Mike's Pastry for lattes and cannolis.

Both were delicious, although I ended up being a little over-caffeinated between the soda I had with the pizza and the latte with the cannoli.

By the time we got to the Skywalk at the top of the Prudential Building I was a little queasy, but still enjoyed the view. It was fun to find buildings that I recognized, and it was great to see Fenway Park filling up for the game that night.

After we made it down to ground level, we went on a Duck Boat Tour! It was really amazing. I had so much fun and we went all over the city. Our driver was great, both informative and amusing. I would recommend this to anyone who's interested in getting a good overview of the city in a fun way. This is our driver sitting in the jumpseat when he let a kid take the wheel while we were in the Charles River.

After the Duck tour we went to get drinks and watched the Olympics at a bar downtown. It was a great way to continue the feeling of being on vacation, and awesome to have some fun in Boston before I move.

Cape May 2008

2008-08-19T17:44:00.000-04:00

After spending the weekend in Princeton and finding an apartment, I headed straight to Cape May for a relaxing week with my family. And by family, I mean the whole fam damily. Dan & Mo and their kids John and Liam, my parents and John & Jill and thier kids Nathaniel, Sebastian and Emerson. We played plenty of Blokus, skee-ball and mini-golf, spent some quality time at the beach (yes, I went in the ocean up to my waist), took a horse-drawn carriage ride, the ladies (there's only 4 of us) went to formal tea and got pedicures, and I had the chance to go to dinner with my brothers and their wives while mom and dad watched the kiddos. Overall it was a great week. As usual, I'm already looking forward to next year!

Princeton apartment, yes I have one!

2008-08-18T06:41:00.000-04:00

So, thanks to some much needed moral support from my good friend Sylvie, I decided on an apartment in Princeton. I currently love the fact that I can walk to work at Harvard and I made that a priority when looking at apartments in Princeton. So I decided on a one-bedroom that's about a 15 minute walk from my new job. My walk takes me directly past the amazing Princeton Public Library and my choice of cute bakeries and coffee shops. It's close to the downtown area, but right around the corner from an elementary school with a community garden and amazing playground (I can't wait for my nephews to see it), a community rec center with a pool, tennis courts and basketball courts and great Mexican and Italian restaurants. While Sylvie and I walked around the neighborhood more than one person said hello to us, either from their front porch or while walking past us. It seems like a great little neighborhood and I'm excited to live there and hopefully become part of the community.

The apartment itself is not the prettiest place I've ever lived (my one bedroom in Chicago will be tough to beat), but it will do for now. It has a teeny-tiny bathroom, a kitchen, living room/dining area and bedroom. I'm looking forward to moving in and making it my own. I'll be sure to post some photos once I get to a good place in the decorating.

Thanks so much to Sylvie for keeping me company on the drive down and helping me keep my thoughts straight as we looked at so many apartments, each with their ups and downs. One of the funniest "downs" to one of the places was the fact that it was across the street from a cemetery, which is fine, except that when I looked out the bedroom window in that direction, the biggest headstone in the whole place had one word on it: BETH. It was a little creepy. There were other reasons not to take that apartment, but that was the most amusing. :)

Passim on NPR

2008-08-05T22:56:00.002-04:00

Tonight I had the chance to hear this great story about Club Passim on NPR. I've been volunteering here since I moved to the Boston area 2 years ago and I've had the pleasure of seeing so many great shows. Some of the highlights include Josh Ritter, Utah Phillips, The Nields, Erin McKeown, The Falcon Ridge Preview Tour, and Old School Freight Train among others.

One of the hardest things for me to leave in Chicago was the Old Town School of Folk Music and Passim did a great job of filling in that gap. I took guitar lessons at Passim and made friends with some great people who were also volunteers. Soon I'll be leaving Cambridge and Passim and I'll be looking, yet again, for another great venue to volunteer for and hopefully see some great music while I'm at it.

Tomatoes!

2008-08-03T21:43:00.004-04:00

I haven't even gotten to NJ yet and I'm surrounded by tomatoes of all shapes, shades and sizes. And I love it! This past weekend it was my turn to do the pick up at Lindentree Farm. Sylvie and I headed out there together and part of the "pick your own" was Cherry Tomatoes. We had a couple different options, but our favorite (through taste testing) was the Sun Gold variety that ripens to a beautiful orange color. Here I am after filling our basket (and our bellies) full of these delicious treats.
There were so many rows of tomato bushes with tons of unripe tomatoes on them, so I know we'll be getting more in the coming weeks!

I have some of my own tomatoes growing on the back porch. I got a plant from my friend Jeff on my birthday and it's doing really well. I think it's a Green Zebra variety, so I'm excited to see what this ripens into. Here is a photo of the biggest one right now:

There are plenty of flowers and some more fruit on the vine, just waiting to ripen into home grown tomatoes! I can't wait!

The strangest thing (also tomato related) happened in our kitchen this week. My roommate Tim had bought a tomato at a farmer's market a couple weeks ago and left it out on the counter. I was cleaning up the kitchen and when I went to throw this weeks old, rotting tomato away, I noticed that little tomato plants were growing out of it. We now have it out on the back deck and lovingly refer to it as our Mutant Tomato. I can't wait to see where this goes. You can see more green shoots trying to poke through under the skin:

Also on the back porch (but not tomato related) are my morning glories! They are growing out of a pot and seem to be doing well climbing up the rails on the porch. I haven't had any flowers yet, but I'm starting to see buds and that's very promising. I just want to see both the moon flowers and morning glories bloom at least once before I have to leave.

This summer has been great for all of the plants on our back porch. Tim has some peppers and we have a good variety of herbs, too. It's so nice to have an outdoor space to enjoy on these hot days. Hopefully I'll be lucky enough to find something with that option in Princeton. For now, I'm happy enjoying the porch that I have.

Library Ladies

2008-07-30T07:51:00.005-04:00

In the course of attending Simmons I had the pleasure of meeting some fabulous future librarians. Last night 6 of us who recently completed our degrees got together for drinks at Cuchi Cuchi in Cambridge. We had a fabulous time talking about finishing classes, new jobs, potential jobs, and other non-library related topics. It was a nice chance for me to connect with these women as friends, but also at this point as colleagues. We are the next generation of the library profession and I'm excited to keep in touch with folks who I think will be movers and shakers in the years to come.

From L to R: Ashley, Me, Sylvie, Ann, Allison and Amy

Falcon Ridge 2008

2008-07-29T22:05:00.004-04:00

On Saturday I had the chance to head out to Falcon Ridge Folk Fest for the weekend. It was a great time, especially on Saturday when I saw performances by Dar Williams, The Nields, Martin Sexton, Lindsay Mac, Patty Larkin, Vance Gilbert and many other musicians. It rained a little in the afternoon, and then again in the evening and then really rained overnight. Thankfully I was sleeping in a car, so that didn't matter too much. I stayed until Sunday afternoon. In the morning on Sunday they have the Gospel Morning Wake-Up Call which is one of my favorite parts of the weekend. Here are (a very pregnant) Nerissa and Katryna Nields at the Wake Up Call:

And here's a video of the crowd at the Main Stage during the Gospel Wake-Up Call:

I had the good fortune of being able to volunteer on the Lost and Found Crew again this year with the fabulous crew chiefs Ben and Lucinda. The Crew feels like family, even after just a couple hours. And it's so fun to be able to give people back what they lost. The highlights included returning $260 in cash that someone actually turned in, and having a little boy come running up to the table pointing at a little stuffed turtle and saying "Jack! Jack! I've been looking for you everywhere!" It was really heartwarming. Here's a photo of the whole Lost and Found Crew:

The whole Festival was kind of plagued with bad weather, but I was lucky to avoid most of it, including the disastrous hail storm that hit only about an hour after I left on Sunday. I'm glad I got out when I did.

Already looking forward to next year!

Brotherly Love

2008-07-28T21:35:00.000-04:00

When I was visiting John and Jill earlier this month, I had the chance to play with the boys in the driveway, where Nathaniel showed me is two-wheeled bike riding and some skateboarding. Sebastian really liked setting up cones to ride his bike around, but Emerson liked taking his little obstacle course apart. I caught this funny video of that process:

Photos from Minnie!

2008-07-27T19:48:00.000-04:00

Christa and I traveled together out to Minneapolis from July 18-22 to meet the amazing Zoe and hang out with Jerri and Mark. Jerri and Zoe picked us up at the train station near their house and as soon as we got home, I started taking photos and Zoe pretty much didn't get put down the entire weekend. Here she is waving Hi:

Even with a baby in tow, we managed to do so many fun things. I wouldn't expect anything less from Jerri, mom and hostess extraordinaire! Here she is with Zoe at Herkimer, a local brew-pub where a bunch of folks met up after the rained-out portion of Mark's birthday softball game:

On Monday we walked over to the Walker with high hopes of playing mini-golf at the artist-designed mini-golf installation, but it was closed. We did enjoy the walk and Christa and I got to explore the beautiful sculpture park while Jerri and Zoe rested on a nearby bench. It was a gorgeous afternoon. Here is one of the most famous sculptures, Spoonbridge and Cherry, with the skyline in the background:

This is a garden and trellis also in the sculpture park:

And Christa's eagle eyes spotted this little critter in the hedge. It's a 13-striped ground squirrel, also known as a gopher. Pretty cute!

Even after being pushed all over town, Zoe still had some giggles left in her. She really is quite the smiley baby:

Here they are, the Wagners Three, pretty much ready for bed after a fun day and fun weekend! It was so nice to get to meet Zoe at such a young age and to see Jerri and Mark in the roles of Mom and Dad. They're a great family and I can't wait to visit them again.

It's been a busy month

2008-07-24T21:47:00.002-04:00

OK folks -

I know my last post was a month ago, but it's been a busy month. I've seen some great live performances (Josh Ritter and Eilen Jewell), have gotten to hang out and enjoy summer with many, many friends, I got to go to NJ and hang with my brother and sister-in-law and their 3 kids, I got to travel to Minneapolis with Christa to meet Jerri and Mark's new baby, Zoe, and while I was there I got an amazing phone call letting me know that I have a new job! My last day at Harvard will be August 20th and my first day as a Senior Image Cataloger with Princeton University's Department of Art and Archaeology will be September 2nd. This is a major life change for me as I will be uprooting my life here in Cambridge and am already actively looking for a place to live in Princeton. So if you're ever in the Princeton (or NYC or Philly) area after September, let me know. I'm excited to be only an hour from either city, and an hour from family (Mom and Dad in one direction, John & Jill and the kiddos in the other direction).

I'm looking forward to this new adventure and to getting the most out of my remaining time in the Boston area. I'll try to blog more often, but the next 5 weeks are gonna fly!

Meeting Monisha and Sonali

2008-06-25T22:17:00.003-04:00

My dear friends Amanda and Milan welcomed their beautiful twin girls, Monisha and Sonali, into the world on June 15th. Quite the Father's Day gifts! I got to stop by this afternoon and meet the little darlings and congratulate the new parents on a job well done. The girls slept through most of the visit, but it was nice to catch up with Amanda and see her in Mommy mode. Here is a photo of the happy family:

Farm share cooking

2008-06-23T22:32:00.004-04:00

This past Saturday I got my second dose of farm share. It included some broccoli, Swiss chard, salad greens, cabbage, turnips, spinach and tons of strawberries!

I did lots of cooking tonight. I made my first recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Chard with shallots and oranges. It was an interesting recipe, and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out, but I had all of the ingredients, so I went for it, and I'm so glad I did! It turned out to be delicious. It basically involved caramelizing the shallots and oranges and then steaming the chard with it, adding a little vinegar and salt and pepper. It was really good.

Next I took the half head of cabbage and made some coleslaw from scratch. I also learned about salting the cabbage before making the slaw, thanks to Mr. Bittman. So I just put together some mayo, a little dijon mustard, carrots, salt and pepper. It's really tasty and I'm looking forward to having it with a veggie burger, maybe for dinner tomorrow.

And last but not least, I just had to use up all those strawberries! I ended up making enough strawberry shortcake to feed my roommates, too. I made the shortcakes from scratch (sort of, I used pancake baking mix). No one complained and all of us sat out on the back porch enjoying the summer evening and good food.

Earlier this afternoon I finished Studs Terkel's autobiography, Touch and Go. It was a great read and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys American history, biographies or things to do with Chicago. He's a remarkable man, a national treasure and I'm so happy he published this book. He has so many stories to tell, has done so many amazing things. As much as I enjoyed all of the stories in the book, I'm sure there are many more that haven't been told. I can only hope that my memory and wits are that sharp when I'm in my mid-90s. Truly amazing.

Birthday weekend

2008-06-21T15:42:00.009-04:00

Alright, alright, everyone has been bugging me to post about my birthday party and the weekend, so here we go.

The morning of my birthday I woke up early and headed out for a nice little bike ride. I rode out to Spy Pond in Arlington and got to sit for a while and soak in the fact that I was turning 30 for real. It was nice to start the beautiful day with some time outside in the fresh air.

Then I went to work, where my co-workers took me out for a birthday lunch. I left early because Suz's flight got in and we met up in Harvard Square, I showed her where I worked and we did a little window shopping. We met up with Miriam and Sylvie for dinner at City Girl Cafe and went to Christina's for amazing homemade ice cream. It was a great way to celebrate my actual day. I got many phone calls and emails from people far and wide. And it was just the beginning of a weekend full of celebrating.

On Friday Suz and I made a great meal using some of the goodies from the farm share with some additional goodies. The salad was made from Boston lettuce from the farm, and the stir fry had the bok choy. It was delicious!

We also went to the Institute of Contemporary Art to see the Anish Kapoor exhibit. It was an amazing exhibit and I'm hoping to get back at some point. We couldn't take photos in the exhibit, but this is one from the outside of the museum. After seeing the art we got to sit and watch boats in the harbor. It's a beautiful setting and we both had a great time.

Kim got in late on Friday and Saturday was dedicated to getting ready for the party. But before serious party-prep got underway, all three of us went mini-golfing.

Kim discovered that the sign was wrong, and even if you do get the ball in the Moon hole, you are not guaranteed a hole in one.

Suz and I had fun posing with the mini-golf animals. This squirrel was particularly sassy. Bring it on!

And this hippo didn't make a very good seat:

After getting everything ready for the party, here are the three of us all dolled up and ready to go. I got that necklace at the ICA as a treat for myself.

Here's me and Sylvie enjoying the evening.

Kim made an amazing strawberry shortcake and yes, there were 30 candles and I blew them all out in one breath! I was so happy that I'm still not too old to blow out all the candles on my cake.

On Sunday we had to take Suz to the airport and Kim and I headed up to Salem for some kitschy fun with pirates and witches. We went to the Witch Museum and took cheesy touristy photos all over town:
They actually have a statue of Samantha from Bewitched! That took the kitschy cake as far as I was concerned.

After Salem, Kim and I got to hang out for the evening and she left on Monday morning. It was sad to see everyone go and get back to my "normal" life. But no complaints, I had a great weekend of fun and very memorable 30th birthday.

PS - This is my 100th post! How crazy is that?

On turning 30

2008-06-12T09:33:00.003-04:00

So this seems to be a big milestone, this 30th birthday of mine. Not only am I planning on celebrating all weekend with friends from far and near, I've been thinking about this and celebrating for my entire 30th year (since today really starts my 31st year...). There is nothing that could replace the amazing time spent with Christa and Jerri in Vermont in March. That weekend was reflective, energizing, enlightening and above all fun and memorable. There have also been personal goals that have been reached. Big ones like finishing my Masters, and little ones like riding my bike more, using my car less, watching less TV and taking more photos. There have been quiet moments of solitude to reflect on my life thus far and dream about everything that's on the horizon and wonderful moments shared with friends and family. Overall, I'd say I lead a pretty amazing life and I'm only looking forward to more adventures, more learning, more quiet time and always more fun and memories. Here's to the next three decades and hopefully the three decades after that!

First pick-up at Lindentree

2008-06-10T22:35:00.001-04:00

So you've read about me going to Lindentree for orientation and going back to learn how asparagus grows and then put in my four work hours. Now you get to see what I'm so excited about:

This is just a sample of what I picked up yesterday at the farm. I got some bok choy, peppery arugala (in the colander), turnips, radishes and pick-your-own strawberries. I also got broccoli, butter lettuce, kale and some herbs. It was more than I was expecting for the first pick-up. And now I'm excited to find some good bok choy recipes. Feel free to comment with any suggestions for how to use any of these items. I'll be getting half of the share every other week, so I'll post each time and try to keep track of all of the amazing produce. I'm already excited about the rest of the summer!

Awesome Maine Weekend

2008-06-09T22:13:00.003-04:00

I spent this weekend in Vacationland! And what a vacation it was. I started out by heading to Portland, ME straight from work on Friday and got stuck in horrible traffic getting out of the city. I got to Portland around 7 when I expected to get there before 6, but everything worked out OK. I headed straight to SPACE Gallery which was having a Polaroid Silent Auction as part of Portland's First Friday Arts Walk. I put a bid on one (didn't get it), picked something out of their art-o-mat machine and then started walking over to my friend Emilie's new photo studio. This was a much longer walk than I anticipated and I got to the studio right before 8pm. I went to Syracuse with Em and I hadn't seen her in years even though we've only been 2 hours away from each other for the past 2 years. It was great to see her beautiful studio and meet her fiance. We ended up going out to dinner at a place called The Pepperclub that has wonderful veggie food, even if the decor is pretty tacky. It was great to catch up and, as is often the case with old friends, it felt like we'd seen each other yesterday.

After dinner I drove down to York Harbor to meet up with Sylvie and Miriam at Miriam's parent's beautiful beach house. I got there around 11pm and we had a nice little visit and then I headed to bed. I woke up early on Saturday and walked down to the beach to enjoy an early morning stroll. The water was freezing, but it was nice to hear the waves crashing. I came back and Sylvie and Miriam and I headed out to the Bagel Basket for a wonderful breakfast. They have my favorite: Spinach Bagels! It was delicious and from there we went to the grocery store to get supplies for the weekend. We got everything for a great cookout: nice rolls, ketchup, mustard, pickles, avocado, tomato, the makings of a great potato salad and when we got home we realized that we forgot the veggie burgers! It was pretty silly. Sylvie had a lot of reading to do for class, so Miriam and I went out to lunch with her Aunts who live nearby. We went to a little old diner called Goldenrod and after a nice lunch we convinced her aunts to play Skee-Ball with us.
Aunt Claire was pretty good for her first time playing and kept asking if she was winning. She was beating me, that's for sure. I had a pretty poor showing at that point, but it was fun to play. We headed back home and then Mir and I headed out again to get the veggie burgers, get some famous homemade ice cream at Brown's and pick up a cupcake treat for Sylvie since she had to stay home and read. Oh, and we stopped and played more skee-ball. Except this time I scored 440! I got three 100 points in a row. But here's the story: The sensor was broken and the scoreboard only counted them at 50 points each. So I told the manager and he climbed up the skee-ball machine, took off the front and said "Yep, the sensor's broken..." So, he gave me a free game on another lane. It was pretty funny.

Mir and I headed back home and started getting some dinner together. We made some peanut noodle salad and some potato salad and finally, after reading like a champ all day, Sylvie was able to join us for some Mini-Golf. We went to a new place with pirates and lobsters and had a good time, even though the bugs were out in full force. That's what we get for going at dusk. It was fun, though. We came home and fired up the grill and had a wonderful dinner followed by a round of Yahtzee.

On Sunday I woke up and read on the porch for a while before Sylvie and Miriam woke up and we all headed over to the Bagel Basket again for another round of bagels. I ended up buying half a dozen of the spinach bagels to bring home. (I'm happy to report that they freeze well!) After that we headed back to the house, Sylvie read some more and Miriam and I took a walk to the Wiggly Bridge, which really is wiggly! When we came home I took a shower and packed up my car while Sylvie and Miriam headed to the beach for a quick dip. After that we all headed out to the Wild Iris Herb Farm. This place was like a fairy-land. There were butterflies flitting about and beautiful flowers and herbs. It was SO pretty. It was a nice way to end a great trip. I headed back to Cambridge from there and made it home safe and sound in time to enjoy a nice dinner on the grill.
It was so nice to not worry about a thing. I wish vacation happened more often.

JK Rowling at Harvard

2008-06-05T23:08:00.003-04:00

Today I got to see JK Rowling give the commencement speech at Harvard. I really enjoyed it. It was way better than the commencement speech for Simmons, so I appreciated it as a recent graduate. Here is a link to video and the full text. Here is a link to an NPR story about it with some pretty interesting opinions from some members of the Harvard class of 2008, a 10-year-old who skipped school to attend, and some alumni.

This is how far back I had to stand. If you look really close, you can see the podium way in the distance with the real JK Rowling standing at it. It was still worth it.

Working on the farm

2008-05-31T15:30:00.005-04:00

Part of the deal of getting a farm share at Lindentree Farm is that you have to work 4 hours at some point during the summer. I decided that I wanted to get it done with early, so I headed over this morning and got in on some planting and seeding. Here is a photo of the tons of basil that was planted by our little crew this morning:

It smelled SO good. I can't wait to get some of it in my part of the share! I also helped to plant loads of summer squash. Some of this I did with a trowel and most of it I just dug in with my bare hands. It was so nice to have some great soil to be in. All of this was done under the threat of rain, with thunder booming in the distance. After the planting was finished, I got to seed some lettuce in the greenhouse. Lettuce seeds are very tiny! Each tray has 98 seeds planted in it and we planted 7 trays. So that's a lot of lettuce. And this is the second round of lettuces that are being planted. The "empty" trays in the background are what I was working on.

While we were planting the lettuce the clouds opened up and drenched the farm with a quick downpour. It smelled so good. By the time I was finished, I had a huge blister on my hand (thanks to the trowel). Note all of that good organic dirt on my hands!

Once I got home and showered, I was so exhausted that I ended up taking an hour nap and I'm still feeling a little tired from my morning. But it was totally worth it. It's amazing how you feel so connected to your food when you truly have a hand in helping it grow.

Change is good, right?

2008-05-29T09:44:00.002-04:00

Does anyone else feel like things are changing like crazy? Little things, like having a different person make my bagel, and big, big things like finding a new job, possibly finding a new place to live, TURNING 30 IN TWO WEEKS! Yeah, things are changing. Here is just another example: Pazzo Books in Roslindale is moving to West Roxbury. This is a bummer for two reasons: 1.) they won't be around the corner from Murforelli anymore and 2.) they are NOT taking the skee-ball with them. Now I've only played Skee-ball there a few times, but they've all been good. You can see some of the results here and here.

Anyone else feeling like things are changing? Is it just spring? Something in the air? The stars aligning? Let me know...