friends

the weekend was a blur of wonderful food and delicious friends.






























also? if you haven't played katamari forever on a giant projector screen? you pretty much haven't lived.

annie hall

if you were gonna
see one woody allen film,
this should be the one.

it is SO not fair

they have such funny news items in cambridge, and there's really no equivalent here (at least not that i've come across -- like a good old fashioned police blotter compiled and edited by someone with a great sense of humor). my mom sends me things from wicked local cambridge all the time, and they're often laugh-out-loud funny. case in point:


Cambridge Man Threatens Woman With Frying Pan

By Auditi Guha
Wicked Local Cambridge
Posted Jan 26, 2010 @ 02:43 PM

A man who attacked a woman with a frying pan in his Cambridge home was arrested on Jan. 21, according to a police report. The 62-year-old Cambridge victim told police the suspect allegedly came towards her threateningly, a raised frying pan in his hand, causing her to “duck and back away.” She said she believed he was going to strike her with the pan and called police. The defendant told police he was cooking soup in the kitchen when the victim came in “like a hungry vulture.” All she does is “talk, talk, talk,” he added. He said they argued and she called him names so he lost his cool. He denied going after her with a frying pan. He also reportedly complained “she has time for everything in the world but me.” Swarn J. Singh, 70, of Cambridge was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. The pan was tagged as evidence.


***note: the above photograph is for illustrative purposes only. it was a fake altercation staged by me, my bruddie, and my mom in the kitchen at christmastime. our acting out of such scenes staved off any actual misbehavior for the entire visit.

red boat on blue water

as seen from willard beach, a joyful dog's eye view. i love walking here with minnow and m, especially on a cold-but-not-too-cold wintery day. there are moments when you realize how lucky you are, you know?

flip

i haven't mentioned one of my favorite christmas presents, an adorable little flip video camera, for the four of us from my mom and dad. it's so fun to play with! m used it to film the previous piece, a short documentary on the subject of salty pete, and i present here a little film i like to call "minnow eating sweet potato."

assaulted by salty pete

we brought the sass to the portland pirates game last night. salty pete came by to ruffle our hair and generally harass us. this was my first hockey game ever; we went because bean had an intensive for school that involved selling tickets to the game. it was bizarre and fun. there was only one fight, and the crowd seemed pretty disappointed, especially when the pirates lost to the lowell devils in the end.

ma petite brunette

bean dyed her hair brown! she looks absolutely gorgeous.



































minnow, however, is still a redhead.

sweet and lowdown

samantha morton's
sweet and silent performance
almost breaks my heart.

what ever happened to baby jane?

"blanche, you aren't ever
gonna sell this house, and yaren't
ever gonna leave..."

more christmas bounty

i just love this canvas basket that a & j gave us for christmas (and it was chock full of presents, i might add). it's serving as scarf-and-mitten-basket at the moment, but very, very, very soon it will be accompanying us on lovely summer picnics, packed full of delicious food...

rebel without a cause

the first day of school:
field trip, knife fight, true love, death.
what will day two bring?

snow day

every day has been a snow day lately around here (though not the kind where school is canceled, just a day where snow falls from the sky and lands in my driveway). monday was a fabulous blizzard, and tuesday the snow continued to fall softly all day. bean was home sick, and i took a break mid-day to get beat by her in scrabble and drink some tea.

happy birthday, david!

my baby brother turns thirty-five today! i just spent an hour searching my various stashes of photographs, looking for a cute old picture of him to scan, with no luck. he was an adorable baby, charmingly dimpled and chubby. oh well, he's still pretty cute.

gigantic

all quirk and no heart,
big-budget mumblecore with
brand name movie stars.

rabenmutter

my new favorite german word, which i discovered in this article about working moms in germany. it means "raven mother," as in "big mean bird that pushes her babies out of the nest." isn't that great?!

birch

in my continuing "christmas was so awesome" series, here is my gift to m. essentially, i gave him a bunch of bark -- a set of birch tubes from small stump, to be precise. i just knew he would love them (he has a thing for birch trees). they are inspiring us to move forward on our plan to paint the living room. a plan that we've been discussing for about eleven years.

låt den rätte komma in

every twilight fan
should have to watch this movie.
vampires, for real.

free at last

the horrible cone is off, the eye is nearly healed, and minnow's breath is minty fresh.*




*he had a small growth cut from below his eye, and he also had his teeth cleaned. he is very happy to be able to scratch his ears.

help haiti

this is such an easy way to do something. the red cross has raised over ten million dollars via text messages so far.

image copyright joanna muñoz, found by me at the daily what.

everyone says i love you

singing and dancing.
not woody allen's best one,
but it's pretty fun.

two of my favorites

a soy latte and m.

offspring

i guess i'm feeling pretty sentimental about these two.

saying crow things, doing as they please

every day is a little bit longer, but this is still what you see when you walk through deering oaks in the middle of the afternoon and look up.

my boy

i don't know if i've mentioned how tall boo is getting (even without the rabbit head on). he would now tower over robert reich, for example, and he is taller than bean, pretty nearly eye-to-eye with me. i would say more, like how deep his voice is and what a stylish and thoughtful almost-fourteen year-old he is, but i'm probably not allowed to.

inducted

isn't "inducted" a funny word? bean was formally inducted into the national honor society last night at school with a few other smarties. it was a lovely little ceremony, and it felt like practice for her graduation in a way. as in, practice restraining myself from bawling in public (tears on my cheeks = acceptable. sobbing = not).
























isn't she the prettiest little thing you ever saw? and isn't her nhs pin totally max fisher?
























her crew leader (kind of her adviser), who doesn't know her all that well, said that he imagines her in a woody allen movie. or a "french neorealist film that (he) hasn't seen." later he amended this to an italian neorealist film. still, it was a strangely flattering and accurate description.

precious

beautifully acted,
painful to watch, but holding
a glimmer of hope.

the shining

so much funnier
when watched with squeaky toys and
a toy ice cream truck.

like a bunch of ten year olds at a sleepover

saturday night was dinner with friends and party tricks.* have you ever tried the one wherein one person sits in a chair and four people attempt to lift him with just two fingers each (under the sitter's arms and knees)? and it doesn't work, and then the lifters stack their hands, one by one, in the air (not touching) above the sitter's head, and then remove them one by one and try again, and the person practically flies up into the air?

no? well, try it!
























this guy thinks he has a scientific explanation, but i don't buy it. it's...magic.

























*"scary sleepover activities" would be more accurate, since we even found ourselves in jason's bathroom chanting "bloody mary" at the mirror in the dark at one point.

life without encumbrance

minnow's cousin-auntie lulu is visiting this week while my parents are on sanibel island.



































she is very kindly not making fun of the collar of shame he has to wear for a few more days as he recovers from his (very minor) eye surgery. it is getting less pitiful each day, as he figures out how to do what he needs to do while wearing a huge plastic cone around his neck.



































that doesn't mean he's happy about it.

the tracey fragments

ellen page, wrapped in/
a shower curtain, looking/
for her lost brother.

the third man

orson welles is great,
but joseph cotten is my
very favorite.

the girlfriend experience

rich men rent a girl.
but it's actually about
the economy.

the shining plus

eight of us watched the shining at enoch's in an interactive way last night. how to describe it? like a cross between a rocky horror picture show midnight screening and a non-drinking drinking game, i suppose. we were armed with instruments and noisemakers (i had a rainstick and "when the river of blood is a-flowing."
























also two handbells to be rung at any mention of "redrum"). the star of the show was definitely the musical toy ice cream truck, as played by jason not only at the mention of "ice cream," but also whenever the sno-cat appeared...maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious.

all the president's men

my favorite thrillers
are like this - smart, tense, and true...
i love this movie.

yum yum

continuing my theme of making you jealous of all the great christmas presents i received this year, i just wanted to rave about vegan yum yum, which was a gift from david and ellen. i've been a reader of lauren ulm's gorgeous blog for a long time, and i even have her application on MYphone. her food photos are gorgeous; i paged through this book on christmas day and wanted to make everything. so that's what i'm gonna do, starting (so far) with:

:: broccoli almond sweet-and-sour tofu ::
:: snickerdoodles* ::
:: apple cranberry salad with country-fried seitan ::
:: apple cider brussels sprouts ::
:: baked mac and cheeze ::

everything was delicious with the sole exception of the dressing on the salad (it's made with almonds and is supposed to be a creamy dressing, but i couldn't get the texture right, and the flavor was a little dull). i can't wait to make the other ninety-five recipes in this book!




*the official cookie of the checkout girl. mine weren't quite as perfect as hers, but almost.

the way we get by

elderly greeters
of returning u.s. troops --
surprisingly sad.

the big sleep

bacall's sultry voice:
"i guess i'm in love with you."
i love classic noir.

frozen river

desperate, poor, cold...
a trailer mom smuggles folks.
how can it end well?

searching

funny searches that brought people to this blog lately:

:: expiry date vaporub matter ::

:: goyish hanukkah ::

:: in dreidel what does ante-up again mean ::

:: kefir teeth ::

:: mamas are mean ::

:: photoshop in my phone ::

:: what does method to my madness mean ::



i am particularly haunted by the thought of "kefir teeth" for some reason.

one must have a mind of winter

we've been having beautiful, soft, constant snow for the past few days. yesterday m and i took minnow for a walk in baxter woods, where he assumed his snowdog personality, leaping around like a rabbit.






























after we got home he was transformed into a stuffed animal, apparently.
























his paws and legs were full of snow balls.
























i am ready to embrace this winter thing. for the moment.

comfort

pumpkin pie pancakes and veggie bacon for breakfast, to celebrate the last day of winter vacation. now boo is finishing some homework, bean is wrapping up the college applications, and m and i are hoping to talk someone into going sledding with us.