vegetarian food festival

bean and i are going to catch a bus to boston later. we'll stay with mom and dad, and tomorrow we are going to the vegetarian food festival! bean's never been before, but remember how i went last year? i am pretty excited about the free snacks. i hope those nice sheese people are there this year. there are a couple of speakers i'd really like to see, too.

pretty

i don't know what it is about this simple necklace that i love so much, but i do! it's by eddy & edwina, also known as karin kramer. i started reading her blog when bean was in germany, because she lives very close to where bean lived. it was reassuring, somehow, to read about the everyday life of a young crafty mom just a few towns over. i had an ongoing fantasy that bean would get in touch with her and babysit her kids, which never happened (although she did email for pforzheim tips, and karin was really helpful).

not a movie review at all

i loved it, loved it, loved it. don't make me say anything else about it or i'll burst into tears.

lucky me

look what arrived at my doorstep just a few minutes ago, a belated birthday gift from my bruddie! moments before that, i had been reading about this cookbook and wishing desperately that i could try this cashew cream recipe, if only my blender hadn't kicked the bucket a couple of months back. i can't even begin to tell you how excited i am about putting something in this thing and blending it. thank you SO much, david!!!

awesomest mom award 2009

...goes to me, for making the best after school snack in the history of the world (thank you, me! you're quite welcome, me). spicy tofu.* see the three water glasses? that's what i'm talking about.



*well, my crazy kids think it's the best snack, anyway.

kind of a book review

i kind of loved this book. it's wordy, brainy, philosophical, full of pleasing sentences. i experienced a mild dismay with it towards the end, for non-specific reasons. but mostly i loved reading it, especially the fantastic coincidence of the fact that moments after talking to bean and m, who were in new york this weekend touring barnard college (she LOVED it), and learning that they were eating breakfast at the hungarian pastry shop, i happened upon this sentence:

I found myself standing in front of the Hungarian Pastry Shop, in front of its fogged windows into which no child had yet traced patterns.

wordle

here's my awkward screen grab of my very own word cloud that i made at wordle. isn't it cool? although, it truly is alarming how large the words teeth and dentist are. thanks for the tip, dad!

teeth

(awesome tooth poster available here.)


thank you, everyone, for all your encouraging tooth-related comments! i am amazed how many of us grind our teeth and require an expensive plastic doohickey at night. i will report on my drugstore night guard for sure - it looks like you boil it and bite into it, then kind of mold it onto your teeth, and then dip it in cold water to set. not unlike your idea, holly! in fact, it's probably basically the same thing.

also, while i needed some serious gum work when i returned to the dentist after a ten+ year absence, i am now ready to get my cleanings at the une dental clinic. but i did pay the big bucks for my planing and scaling, melissa, at the very same dentist-to-the-stars, where they hand out free movie passes if they make you wait more than five minutes and apply a lavender-scented neck wrap when you climb into the dentist chair.

tooth

which reminds me that back in our casco bay books days, bean and boo had an ongoing business/design project that for some reason they called "casco bay tooth." i keep thinking of my molar as the casco bay tooth.

here's what i was afraid of: that i'd go to the dentist and be told that i needed a crown (or worse, a root canal and a crown), which my research tells me can cost in the thousands of dollars. i would then burst into tears in the dentist chair, and my dentist would casually walk out of the room (which is his tendency when i bring up the subject of money). not having thousands of dollars, i'd then go to the low-cost dental clinic, where they'd happily pull my tooth for me, for cheap.*

so the very happy ending to my tooth story is that it was fixable through filling, replacing my hideous old evil mercury filling with a shiny new white-ish one. i was sent off with a bill of only $300 and a warning that many of my other teeth are in danger of crumbling to pieces because of how ferociously i apparently grind my teeth at night, and that i should probably get a custom-made mouth guard thing for a mere $400. before i left, the hygienist told me that i could buy a temporary "dental protector" at the drugstore for like $15, which would be much better than nothing. the hygienists at my dentist are so much more sensitive to the money issue than the dentist himself.


*maine care takes great care of children's teeth, but not so much for adults. they will cover the pulling of teeth, but not root canals or preventative care. i so much prefer to keep my teeth in my mouth.

kefir

you know those dreams where your teeth start falling out? or is that just me?

yesterday i was eating lunch (brown rice stir fried with carrots, onions, garlic, tamari, and sriracha) when a big chunk of one of my back molars just...fell...out of my mouth. i was left with what my tongue (prone to exaggeration) interprets as a gaping crevasse with very sharp edges, and a disinclination to bite down on anything (although it doesn't hurt at all, thankfully). yes, i will go to the dentist, as soon as i can, but in the meantime i'm using boo's braces wax back there and chewing on the left side of my mouth.

for some reason, my crumbling teeth put me in mind of delicious drinkable things, like kefir. i've been wanting to try this new coconut milk kefir, so i bought me some in strawberry flavor. it's good, but i wish it were more sour - maybe i'll try plain next time. my stomach is very happy with it. so is my mouth.

my future tattoo?

boo's idea.

stella stella stella

my sweetie, stella, came to visit this weekend!

it was pretty much all stella, all the time, because...just look at that face. she is such a cutie pie. below, stella in handcuffs (courtesy of her father. don't worry, she's a baby houdini).

saturday turned out to be a gorgeous, if chilly, day. we walked around the old port, and my bruddy got to try the coffee at both arabica and bard. he also bought us a huge box of standard baking treats, perhaps his favorite portland edibles.

my theory: one day, every american will come with his or her own iphone. kind of like a social security number.

saturday night we had a big pizza party at eva and nathan's house. emily and family were there, and their sister abby was in town with her husband joel. i can't adequately describe the connection between our families, but it goes back years and years, and i find it pretty magical that eva and emily and i all ended up in maine. abby and david were best friends in elementary school. now there are a bunch of offspring, too.

so, much of the evening consisted of a blur of babies (below, stella is still and esme runs by in the background).

then the clothes came off and the babies got really crazy. i tried in vain to capture it on film. doesn't it look like esme is doing some strange tribal dance?

babies, and their admirers.

i miss that girl and her parents already - only two months til christmas!

stella!

birthday redux

m and i are lucky to have birthdays two days apart, because we tend to enjoy week-long celebrations of specialNESS. monday was m's birthday, a national holiday in fact, and bean cooked us an incredibly elaborate southern indian feast of masala idlis, homemade coconut chutney, garlic pickle, and homemade chai (note boo's duplo-made dad of the year award from 2004 as centerpiece, below).



















the idlis were delicious - i think to get them perfect, bean needs one of these.
























homemade chai in an antique cup, above. coconut chutney, below.
























i made m a vegan chocolate raspberry cake that night and we took it over to enoch's where we watched a really odd and wonderful movie, apart from that, on the big screen. the cake was wonderful and not at all odd.

also, there were presents - m got me some nice ginger-smelling scrubby stuff from origins, and sooze and chuck sent us these gorgeous kombucha glasses from an artisan friend they made at tesuque glass works on a recent trip to new mexico:



















also (not pictured), my mom and dad got me a new winter coat. i can't begin to describe how happy i am going to be this winter NOT wearing my old one, which fit me like a sleeping bag.

my favorite was when m and i got birthday lattes at arabica on tuesday.
























on my actual birthday, i spent some quality time at the liberry and also got treated to a birthday coffee by enoch. we had carryout from tandoor that night, just to continue the indian theme.

the celebration continues: today david, ellen, and stella are visiting from north carolina!

birthday goats

"what about the goats?" you ask? "i was told there'd be pictures of goats!" you say?
























never fear, we met plenty of goats on sunday (open creamery day in maine). first we meandered up to tourmaline hill farm in greenwood, where we met about twenty noisy goats including emily, pictured above. there were also ducks, pigs, and many lovely chickens.
























after that, we drove down to harrison, which is about an hour northwest of portland, and visited little falls farm. which was gorgeous - kind of my idea of a perfect little farm, actually, down a long meandering dirt road, beside a winding creek, nestled in these beautiful trees. the house is a charming old farm house with some shingled additions and a row of solar panels alongside.



















there's a huge hay field with moveable "chicken tractors" that allow the chickens to roam pretty much free as they fertilize the field and happily eat bugs and grass and stuff. the goats are really affectionate. m befriended one in particular, and for a while i was imagining loading her into our little car and bringing her back to portland with us.



















except for the general omnivorousness going on around this farm (for example, i asked where the chickens go in the winter time, and the answer was basically "in the soup pot"), it is my country living dream.* mary and john grow ninety percent of what they eat - including asparagus and beans and more - and are mofga certified organic. everything on the farm connects to everything else, and nothing is wasted.
























the goats don't have their horns removed, which is a pretty common practice.

















and they give birth on their own, with no interventions at all, often finding a quiet spot way back in the woods to do it, something they wouldn't be able to do on most farms.

















after we left the farm, we passed this building and paused to admire it. it looks like an old school house, or maybe a church. we all four briefly imagined buying it and fixing it up and living in it. and buying some goats. and then we drove home to portland.




















*although, to be precise, i only have this country living dream about two months out of the year. the rest of the time, i'm a devoted city girl. but those backyard chickens are sounding better and better to me.

boo's bunny dance

missed connections

HOT toll collector
- m4w - 35 (Outerbridge)
I complimented you on your new look today. Hope you see this, I was too shy. The $8 was well worth it... and always is when you’re there.


i love this blog, missed connections. sophie blackall draws pictures illustrating craigslist missed connections she finds particularly poignant or funny. such a brilliant idea, and she does such a great job of capturing them.

apple acres farm

we are doing our best to take advantage of what is turning out to be the most beautiful weekend of the year - yesterday m, bean and i drove northwest to hiram, maine. we've been on a quest for the perfect apple orchard ever since we moved here ten years ago, and i'm happy to report that we finally found it!

first of all, the drive there was spectacular. we have a tendency to hug the coastline when we go exploring in this state, and i was surprised and happy to discover how gorgeous it is in the opposite direction, too. our first stop was at the limington rapids on the saco river.



















next, we were forced to pull over (somewhere near standish) by the sheer adorableness of these fancy sheep and their alpaca friend:
























see what i mean? they were like funny illustrations from a children's book, big fluffy bodies on tiny stick legs.



















also, we all three were seized with the urge to move out to the country, it was so beautiful. there were rolling hills and quaint farmhouses. and sheep.



















our destination, a dream apple orchard.
























apples, pumpkins...
























apple trees...



















plus, peep those leaves!



















oh yeah. and donuts (you can say that in a homer simpson voice if you'd like):
























stay tuned for more quaint, picturesque, outdoorsy maine news, because today is open creamery day across the state. the sun is shining, and the goats are waiting for us to meet them.

photoshop for MYphone

i've been playing around with photoshop this morning, my favorite new (FREE) application. here is an altered photo of the wells nature reserve (the picture was gorgeous originally, but it's fun to fool around with the colors, focus, etc. i think this looks almost like a scene from another planet):

and here are some mums from the farmer's market this morning. i'm trying to do that miniaturizing thing, sort of (this really isn't focused enough in the center of the image to have that effect, but it's getting there. plus the colors are nice):

feet

today's random fact about me: my feet get cold at night, and i usually wear socks to bed. every six nights or so, i wake in a panic with incredibly overheated feet and have to rip my socks off. however, what usually happens is that one of my two socks will come off of its own accord during the night and i will wake wearing one. instead of locating the stray sock under the covers and putting it back on (or conversely, taking the remaining sock off), i just wear the single sock as i stumble downstairs to make my 5:30am coffee, figuring that at least one foot will remain warm. i worry that this starts my day off in a dangerously unbalanced manner, but i am too tired to do anything about it.

via

i tried this, cause m got some free samples one time. it's not as bad as you might think. it's certainly better (and smells much better) than any other instant coffee i've ever had.*





*yes, i realize that's not saying much.

crossing flags

why do i find these crossing flags so adorable? the idea is you cross this part of baxter boulevard by grabbing an orange flag, marching - flag waving? - through the crosswalk, and then depositing in the flag in the holder on the other side of the street. i've crossed here many times, but i've never used a flag (i'm too shy to wave a flag while i cross the street). but i love that they're available, and i love that they are apparently either 1) never stolen or 2) frequently replaced. it's a kind of community/communal property, right? it makes me happy when these things work, when the community works together to not mess things up too badly, and can occasionally share stuff. like...parks, and the benches therein. i often see a sad-looking person sitting on a bench gazing out at the water when i walk around the back cove trail, and i think it's sweet how those benches are available for anyone who needs somewhere lovely to sit and feel sad for a while. and how then that person heaves a sigh, gets up off the bench and leaves, and is then eventually replaced by the next sad, solitary person.

all of this communal property talk makes me wonder, what ever happened with the white bikes in portland? did that work out? i've never seen one with my own eyes. boo tried to use one once, but was yelled at by the bike's owner (turned out it wasn't a white bike, it was just a white bike).

plastic glove peace sign

seen on the sidewalk near the usm planetarium.

sit up straight.

see what i'm sayin'?

my friend

isn't that cute, the way his paws are crossed?

october art walk

we made it to last night's art walk despite various sniffly colds and general familial tiredness (i mean, the family was sleepy, not tired of each other). boo's great friend leander had a photo/film/music show up at fotoshops, which was awesome (one of his film fragments below):




we also checked out the goings-on at a few other galleries. my favorite was draw your face off at space.



















we got to say hi to our old friend, shannon rankin:
























she also had a bunch of pieces up at the ica, including germinate, which is made of circles cut from maps, pinned in patterns:
























i love shannon's work - it frequently involves maps, cut pieces, patterns, thread. it's beautiful. she also has an etsy shop right here.


my other favorite piece was a huge arch made of books inside a dark little room lined with mirrors, by aaron t. stephan.
























then we watched paprika on enoch's huge projector screen. and then we ate paprika fries. the end.