Adventures of Lick & Riz

Our Pending Addition

2011-12-21T13:22:00.009-05:00

Due to a dwindling supply of blog topics and viable gametes, Liz and I decided that after ~18 years together it was time to expand the family. And because we can't count on nieces and nephews to care for us when we're decrepit. Oh and because there was just too much love to contain between just two people. Also that. Probably should have listed that one first but anyhoo we decided it was time.

Liz, being Liz, got a book called Taking Charge of Your Fertility and began charting and temperature taking and just generally showing her fertility who was boss. She took no guff from her fertility, believe me. Given our long history of unfruitful boots knockin' and some thyroid issue mentioned in the fertility book that Liz convinced herself she had, we were prepared for a long, arduous journey to conception.

Nope. One try. Boom, zygote. Book it. Done. Needless to say the book worked. My repeated requests to be henceforth called King Virile the Dongnipotent were rebuffed, unfortunately. Felt a little cheated, actually, but gift horse, mouth, etc. Despite readying myself for the day for some time, actually seeing the two-lined pee stick was kind of a shock. I felt pretty weird for a few weeks--like nobody in the history of the world could ever understand what I was feeling. But that was early October and I've had plenty of time to adjust to the new reality. Liz, despite some nausea and fatigue, got through trimester #1 relatively unscathed. We've since had an ultrasound and bought a baby carrier backpack so I think we're pretty much ready.

The ultrasound was pretty amazing, actually, to which anyone who's seen their new kid for the first time can attest. We were not expecting to see it moving around already. It all got really real really fast. So everything looked normal, it had both a brain and a heartbeat, and the limb counts were well within specs. They couldn't see external genitalia yet so we won't find that out for another four weeks. Unless Liz is lying to me, neither of us have a strong preference other than healthy and not a total A-hole. So, God willin' and the Creek don't rise, we'll be seeing this little guy or gal on or around June 15th.

A Strange Occurence on the Soutwest Corridor Bike Path

2011-10-17T14:27:00.013-04:00

Since I take the same bike path to work every non-rainy day I see a lot of the same people day after day. Some of their stories are pretty boring: lady jogging off the baby weight behind a stroller, guy walking his distinctive dog, guy in the Orioles hat, long gray ponytail man who reads the free newspaper outside the T stop every morning. Some have slightly more interesting stories like guy passed out on the bench who gives off a cloud of booze vapor that you can literally smell from ten yards away in a stiff breeze while biking at full clip and Jehovah's Witness lady who hands out pamphlets at literally the least busy intersection in a one mile radius. Sometimes I like to give them backstories: gray ponytail man is a Vietnam vet still dealing with his PTSD demons. Jehovah's witness lady is ambivalent about her religion and doesn't want to expose very many people to it (seriously, we can't even celebrate our birthdays, you'd have to be nuts to convert...but hey, if some pamphlet you got at a deserted intersection changes your mind, I guess it's fate).

Some people, however, are just a mystery, like these two older Hispanic gentlemen I see all the time who are always walking towards each other carrying sticks (I've creatively dubbed them Stick Man #1 and Stick Man #2). Do they know each other? Why are they carrying sticks? Are they just makeshift hand weights? For protection against dogs? Thugs? Are they thugs? My curiosity finally got the better of me and so one day I decided to follow Stick Man #1, pictured here.

I tailed him from an inconspicuous distance for about a half mile until we came to a playground. He stopped and stood motionless by the jungle gym for several minutes while I hid behind a tree. I was just about to leave when Stick Man #2 came walking from the other direction. I suddenly noticed that the playground, normally teaming with laughing children, was deserted and eerily silent. The birds, normally cacophonous, were still. The squirrels...well, the squirrels pretty much just went about their business. I mean, you know squirrels, them nuts aren't going to gather themselves. Anyhoo, the two Stick Men were just standing there, maybe 20 paces apart, for some time. Again, I was about to leave when all of a sudden they started making these intricate gestures at one another with their hands and sticks, mostly stylized versions of the sign of the cross. This went on for several minutes and again, I was about to leave when literally all hell literally broke literally loose.

Suddenly they both disappeared into a cloud of sand and leaves. After a minute, my eyes adjusted and I realized that they hadn't disappeared but were stick fighting at such a blinding speed that they were hard to follow. Yup, they were Catholic stick ninjas! What ensued was the most dizzying display of martial arts prowess I have ever seen. It was like watching the spawn of an unholy threesome between Yoda, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Donatello that took place on Bruce Lee's grave fight his twin brother to the death for the love of their mother. Which one is the mother, you ask? Michelle Yeoh is the mother. Who's packing the largest green wiener, you ask? Jean Claude, ironically.

They jumped. They ducked. They thrusted. They dodged. Did they parry, you ask? Oh hell yes they parried. Also, you ask a lot of questions about imaginary scenarios I make up in my head to pass the time while biking. They seemed perfectly evenly matched. Every time one seemed to get the upper hand the other would execute some miraculous move to turn the tide. Stick Man #2 grabbed a handfull of playground sand and tried to throw it in Stick Man #1's eyes. He batted aside every individual grain with his stick and shouted "Please, the sand in the eyes trick? That hasn't worked since 1987!" #2 then turned and pretended to run away, with #1 right on his heels. #2 ran full speed into one of the swings, did a full over-the-top 360 degree swing, came down behind #1 and delivered a vicious stick thwap to the back of #1's knees. He howled in pain but stayed on his feet. They fought for what seemed like hours as I ran around stomping out the leaf fires that were being ignited by the flaming shards of stick that flew off their sticks when their sticks crossed. It was truly the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. Finally, they fought to what appeared to be a draw. Panting and glistening in sweat, they slowly backed away from each other in the directions from whence they came. "Adios, Sam," said #1. "Until tomorrow, Ralph," said #2. It was pretty crazy.

A few days later I decided I would try and get a picture of #2 for the blog. I passed #1 as normal but never saw #2. Also, #1 wasn't carrying his stick. Then, near the playground, I saw this...

Did I actually make a stick cross and take a picture of it? Yes I did. Google images was no help and I'm not that good at Photoshop. But seriously, Stick Man #2 is missing. If you see him, tell him to call and at least let me know he's OK. I'm starting to get worried.

Jason

2011-08-07T19:44:00.034-04:00

Sunday, Aug. 7th

I wish I could blog only about where we've traveled and what we ate there but sometimes life is profoundly sad, something we were jarringly reminded of when we answered a phone call from John Kerns Friday night in the middle of watching Black Swan. Assuming it was BWCA-related, I was floored when he told me that one of my best friends was dead.

When we first heard car accident and later a fall, and given the "heard through person X who heard from Y and Z" nature of the information, we hoped and thought that it all had to be a mistake, but still Black Swan didn't get finished. I woke up happy and refreshed the next morning; it took a minute before I remembered what had happened the night before. When the phone rang a few minutes later and Liz broke down crying after listening for a few seconds, I knew there hadn't been a mistake.

So, now I have to talk about the life of someone I loved with many, many fewer wrinkles and grey hairs than a hoped I'd have. Everyone who has said things about Campbell on facebook has talked about his quite literally endless supply of energy and desire to make the world better. This is no coincidence and these two facts basically define who he was.

I knew of Jason in high school in the one year we went to Anoka together before about half our class left for the newly constructed Champlin Park. I knew him as one of the cool kids and just kind of assumed he had the standard high school cool kid attitude. The next time we met was a few years later at Gustavus. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I know he came from across campus to my dorm to say hello, having heard from Aaron Wredberg that another northern suburbs kid was attending GAC. It was pretty much history from then on, whenever the dorm phone rang and Campbell was on the other end you knew fun and adventure were soon to follow, probably in a baby blue LeBaron:

Let's pledge the OK's, an unregulated fraternity that are allowed to "spank" you, feed you unpleasant foods, and otherwise make you feel uncomfortable.

Let's join the rugby team. Doesn't matter if you're small, you can be the hooker.
Let's go skydiving/snowboarding/scuba diving.
Let's go rollerblade down the stairs at the library. You go forwards, I'll go backwards.
Let's fill this empty milk jug with beer, leave this party, and drive to the casino.
Let's blow off the rest of this case day and drive down to Mardi Gras.

Let's drive down to Chicago and see the Grateful Dead.
Scratch that, we can see The Dead anytime, let's go to see Lollapalooza in Kansas instead (the Dead concert we'd skipped turned out to be their last).

OK then, let's have a Jerry Garcia memorial party at my parent's house.

Even with all of this, he found the time to work with special needs college kids.

And countless other things that were either with other people or upon which the statutes of limitations have not quite expired on quite yet...

As you mostly all know, Campbell was very unhappy about injustice in the world. Since he was the first person we'd met in college who was more passionate about the plight of the downtrodden as he was keg etiquette, Ross, Drew, and I often gave him good-natured crap about his constant quoting of Chomsky, Zinn, Nader, and Ghandi. I remember "clearly" a "deep" conversation we had one morning (after an all night "think"-a-thon) about some current world conflict or strife--Campbell: "Well you know, Ghandi always said...ah, forget it." I'd like to think some of his freshly learned wisdom rubbed off on us despite our being dumb 19-year-olds in flannel shirts.

In what is the understatement of the decade, the guy had charisma. Whether you were one of the highly attractive young ladies he had the superhuman ability to attract, some nerd he'd met through student government and treated with genuine respect, or the attractive lady nerd he met in one of he his peace studies classes, you pretty much knew you were dealing with a unique individual when Campbell was around...one in how many million is tough to say.

Tuesday, Aug. 23rd.

The funeral is over now and I'm back in MA. The wake was tough, but wholehearted laughter often rang out from a given area of the funeral home. The funniest moment for me was watching a co-worker of his from the home office in LA go through one of his photo albums from our GAC years (all captioned in Campbell's 3rd grade handwriting), OK rush's Hell and Olympic days, more specifically, showing scenes even more graphic than the pic I posted. Seeing the look on the guy's face change as he flipped through page after page of people playing name games and having hot eats and cool treats was pretty damn funny. I told him, "No biggy, just top secret fraternity initiation rituals."

"Jason never mentioned those," he said.
"We'd have had to have killed him," I said tactfully.

The funeral was, bluntly, emotionally brutal. Although speakers from every period of his life very eloquently and sometimes beautifully spoke about what he meant to them, it made his loss that much more acute. My favorite, the LA guy from the night before, spoke about how his hope was that Jason would be given the opportunity to be reincarnated as, and I paraphrase, one who guides others down the path to enlightenment and/or knowledge. He said Jason would probably unhesitatingly accept.

Pretty much.
Hearing people from later on in his life describe his passion for government and labor rights painted a very different and yet somehow very similar picture of Jason compared to the years I knew him best. An inevitable progression I think.

I held it together pretty well until the interment. I'm glad I saw saw his fiance Stephanie shoveling earth onto his casket. She wasn't shoveling weakly or ceremoniously; I think she needed to finish the job herself. If I never see anything half that heartbreaking again in my life I will also be glad. I don't think I could have been that strong in her place and I told her that. She maybe wouldn't have thought she could have either before she did.

After everything, Ross, Drew, and I headed out to Somerset, WI to see music, as we had with Jason many times. We saw DeVotchKa and the Flaming Lips on a perfect night and both were great. As if "Do You Realize" needed to be any more poignant.

Well, so long, my friend, those who knew you best will be saying "Campbell would have wanted us to do X" for the rest of our lives.
Do
You
Realize?

Paris: C'est ce qu'il/elle a dit

2011-07-22T07:17:00.042-04:00

After three years of intensely studying every French word of ill repute I could think of under the tutelage of Madame Klohs at Anoka High School followed by approximately 18 years of barely speaking a word of it, I finally got the chance to go try my tongue at the French tongue where it was invented, France. Having heard stories about the legendary scorn the French reserve for those who dare to speak their language poorly, I was happy to be seated next to Martin, an eleven-year-old French unaccompanied minor (I could tell by his loneliness and the little light on his hardhat) on the flight over, so I could dust off my French in a low pressure situation. I figured I'd start off simple, so I asked him, "Habites-tu a Paris?" He said my mother was a dog and put his cigarette out on my hand. All in all, I thought it went pretty well.

Since I was in Paris to attend ans speak at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, I got to spend the first several days living and working like a local, taking the subway, wearing non-tourist clothes, and showing impatience with the slow walkers. I upped my French speaking ante considerably at the opening night reception at a very cool place called the Museum of Fairground Arts when I asked the carousel operator in what year his carousel was built: "Savez-vous a quel ans votre carrousel a ete construit?" Took a wild guess that carousel was a homonym, got lucky. I apparently did well enough that he went into a long explanation into the carousel's origins. When I stared blankly, he pointed to the plaque on the wall saying it was built in 1900.

Then, Liz showed up, I gave my talk, and we were ready to take Paris like Nazis, and we found it easy to surrender to its charms (obligatory). I bought an off-brand travel guide, "Dick Sleve's: Paris?" so I can't 100% guarantee the accuracy of the information to follow, but hey, a deal is a deal.

Liz vetoed my idea to just get seven day passes to Euro Disney and call it a trip, so after much pouting and many tantrums, I agreed to do it her way and see fruity cultural crap. So, the first day we went to some palace outside town. Not sure what it was called, but the book said its opulence went over really well with the peasants. It rained a bit, but we strolled the grounds, saw a hallava' lotta' mirrors, and had a nice picnic.

In case you were wondering if they sell wine at French McDonalds, we have no idea, but they do have glasses that will hold wine.

The next day we went to the Orsay museum, which had lots of paintings and sculptures. My favorite painting was this one, Dante and Virgil in Hell, as it was badass.

Then we walked around the Latin quarter and saw several other churches, gardens, and a game of bocce. That night, we went to a carnival near our hotel and rode the ferris wheel and sky swing. Then we went to the food tent where, I kid you not, the daily special was foie gras and they had champagne. Yes, Parisian carny food is foie gras and champagne.

The next day we got the most out of our museum passes and went all out in the search for culture and foot discomfort. We climbed to the top of some apparently famous church:

I kept asking people what it was called but they kept saying something about sharing my woman. I had to fight 16 French people (including women and children) to preserve Liz's honor. The book said it took like 1800 years to build and is made entirely out of actual gargoyle flesh.

And hey, they had a statue of that chick from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which was surprising since she must have lived a long time to be around during the construction of this church and also to film that movie. Oh wait, time travel. Of course.

Then we saw a bunch of other boring museums followed by an awesome one containing Ralph Lauren's personal car collection. It lacked Pintos, in my opinion. Then we went to that museum from the Da Vinci Code (the movie, not the book) and saw the Gummi De Milo:

...and a painting of some dude in drag. For centuries, idiots have pondered the meaning behind that smile, shoved their way to the front of the line and taken pictures of it using their flashes despite it being behind glass.

That night we went up inside some cell phone tower that people were all excited about. I guess it was pretty cool, especially since Liz let me have a Heineken at the top.

The next day was thankfully the last day of the museum passes but we still had to see a bunch of boring churches, stained glass windows, paintings, and sculptures. This Rodin guy was a pretty good sculptor, however, and he liked to sculpt people doin' it and/or pooping.

His "Gates of Hell" were pretty badass also, but nobody answered so I didn't get to see hell itself.

We even had to see modern art, which is the worst kind of art of all.

The next day we were on our way to McDonald's (I'm Louvre-in' it) when some bike race broke out. A bunch of guys were chasing some other guy in a stupid looking yellow shirt. They must have biked all over France based on how tired they looked.

We took several other walks, ate some pretty good food, and got pooped on by birds on separate days crossing the exact same street. I can't say for sure whether it was the same bird, but the poop tasted pretty similar so I think it probably was. We even got to see that nightclub from that movie where Nicole Kidman sings all those songs about dying from consumption. Liz and I had different opinions as to its merits:

My proudest French sentences were, at the cafe below our apartment, after some snotty big nosed waiter pretended to squirt the ketchup I'd requested on me when he brought it over and after Liz went up to use our own bathroom: "Elle m'a quitte, elle a dit qu'elle ne pourrait jamais aimer une homme qui mange du ketchup" (She left me; she said she could never love a man who eats ketchup). When we left I said, Bon soir, et vive le ketchup. And also, at a restaurant specializing in cured meats, cheeses, and terrines: "Nous devons revenir quand nous avons plus de faim parceque nous aimons les viandes preservee" (we must return when we are hungrier because we love preserved meats). Later, on that our last night, we shared a late night bottle of champagne outside the Da Vinci Code museum and bid adieu to gay Paris. All in all it was a pretty good trip.

And now, some funny pics/captions:

Don't smoke, or you will grow a stomach penis and pull a hammy running to the hospital.

"Garcon, what does a gay cherub have to do to get an espresso around here?"

No caption.

And finally, I accomplished my primary objective for the trip, to locate the place in France where the naked ladies dance. I found it in the Montmartre neighborhood. Unfortunately, Liz wouldn't let me go in and the song grossly overstates the number of wall holes.

My Retirement Fund

2011-06-11T15:03:00.019-04:00

I was never a huge sports card collector; I never bought a pack of cards in my life. I own two complete sets: a 1988 Topps and a 1991 Donruss. I bought a few rookie cards here and there, however, (from Shinder's) either rookie players I thought were going to make it big or up and coming stars whose careers were nearing their peak. I was recently home rooting around in my mom's basement and decided to grab my collection on a whim. Twenty-five years and change later, it has become clear that my collection is a veritable who's who of unrealized potential, wasted talent, and outright disgrace.

Observe: the unrealized potential

Shane Mack had a five pretty good years with the Twins, finishing his first year with the team (1990) batting .326. This performance, combined with his obviously spectacular mustache, made me run out and spend $4 on his team USA card. Shane went on to have some good and some not-so-good years, going 3 for 23 in the 1991 World Series. Although it's tough to say a nine year MLB career is a failure, he never reached his full potential.

Current estimated value: 40 cents.

Ellis Burks and Mike Greenwell made their Red Sox debuts in 1988 to great fanfare and were predicted to give the Sox a dynasty of dominance. I was surprised to learn Burks played until 2004 and is rated the 240th best hitter of all time (two spots ahead of Kirk Gibson), although his superstar potential was never realized. Greenwell played all 11 of his seasons with the Sox and finished with a highly respectable career B.A. of .295. Again, never a superstar and as everyone knows the Sox would not win a WS until the current century.

Current combined value: under five bucks.

Ah, Bo Jackson: 2-sport athlete, physical specimen, mainstay of Nike commercials. I remember asking my dad whether he thought Bo Jackson was the greatest athlete of all time. He laughed and taught me the phrase "flash in the pan." Pretty much. Eight injury-plagued seasons, .250 lifetime, 141 dingers. Current value: $1.99 (buy it now price on Ebay).

It's probably unfair to include Ken Griffey Jr. with the previous entries--22 seasons, 630 career homers. But given that he was supposed to be the greatest player of all time...well, he isn't. In a word: injuries.

Current value: about 8 bucks.

And now, on to the embarrassments to the game of baseball:

Chucky K: 1991 A.L. rookie of the year. Spark Plug. Hard-nosed player. Dollar hot dog target. Massive douche. After 7 very good years with the hometown nine, Chuck made some less-than-complimentary comments about MN and the Twins and headed off to NY to don the pinstripes and take his place in history as one of the best second basemen of all time. Despite winning four WS he basically peaked as a rookie, famously losing the ability to make a throw from 2nd mid-career. Some other career highlights: arguing with the umpire rather than chasing down a ball that was in play, allowing Cleveland's Enrique Wilson to score from first base and giving the Tribe a 2-1 lead in the 12th inning of a game in the 1998 ALCS. Hitting Keith Olbermann's mother in the face with an errant throw into the stands. And finally, hitting and choking his common-law wife. Current value: two bits. I am currently accepting ideas for the best way to deface and destroy this card. Bicycle spokes are too good for this schmuck. Bonus points for feces utilization (human or animal).

Enough said.

Current value: I found several people giving them away for free online.

Mark McGwire. Big Mac. Broke the Babe's single season home run record. Has a section of I-70 in St. Louis named after him (although there is a large online effort to have its name changed back to the Mark Twain expressway. Who made the more substantial contribution to American history? You be the judge). Oh yes, and it turns out he was a total cheater and steroid aficionado. He does deserve some respect for admitting, albeit tacitly, his steroid use.

Purchase price: 10 bucks.

Current value: 45 bucks! Really? Anyone want to buy a disgraced slugger sports card?

And finally, "Successful" careers but no monetary value to their rookie cards:

$1.50
$0.40

Worth 4 bucks.

I bought this card from a neighbor kid when I was about 12. The kid wanted ten bucks but I said I only had five. My brother helpfully pointed out that there was a ten right in my top drawer. Thanks to Mark I lost six smackeroos instead of one. So there you have it. We should be able to retire on $66.04, right?

Upses and Downsesses

2011-05-17T18:50:00.010-04:00

The last several weeks have had their share of highs and lows. I got a new bike to replace the one that was stolen last year, so that was cool. Then I couldn't figure out how to get it all adjusted properly so that was bad. Then I learned how to correctly adjust a derailleur and got the stripped crank arm rethreaded and I could ride it to work, so that also cool. Then I got knocked to the pavement by cars twice in two days, which was decidedly uncool.

After that, we realized we had a raccoon living in a little tunnel where our porch meets our house and it had tracked poop all over our doors and trim, which was annoying and probably unsanitary. I wanted to kill it but we decided to wait until it left for the night, threw moth balls in the tunnel, and blocked up the hole with bricks. That course of action felt good since we used non-lethal deterrent, which is generally good.

Then we went to visit our friends Erin and Jon in Birmingham, AL, where we were given wonderful steak and out-of-our-price-range wine, which was great. Then we drove down to the FL panhandle and spent a couple days on a really nice uncrowded beach, which was awesome:

Then we used the end of a can of spray-on SPF:

...which either didn't have any SPF left in it or we just didn't apply even coats so we all got these nasty, polka-dot sunburns, which was very unawesome. Liz went to the doctor, twice. They told her she had a sunburn.

When we got home, we realized that the coon had tried very hard to get back in to our house by chewing off shingles, ripping off drip edge, moving bricks, and throwing out the moth balls. I came home from work early to see if it had succeeded, which it had. So then I had to shoot a raccoon with an air rifle, which was heartbreaking. Oh who am I kidding it was the friggen' highlight of my year. The guy at the critter control place we called said the only reason a coon would go to that much trouble to get back in was if there were babies in there, and that it would just grab them and leave once it got to them. Apparently this coon was a non-conformist. We hoped maybe it wasn't with kits and just ornery and liked its cozy little nook and that we hadn't orphaned a litter of baby coons. I'm sure the faint rotten smell coming out of the hole a few weeks later was just coincidence. We gave it a chance to leave so I didn't feel all that bad--I guess mother nature is a cruel bitch, as are air rifles. I didn't take pictures of the hunt or the kill out of basic decency, but it looked something like this:

Then tourist season got underway with visits from my dad and Dave Strand, along with a bunch of guys who traveled out to watch the Twins play the Red Sox in honor of Shane Reese and Greg Mazzuco's upcoming nuptials (not to each other, despite there being absolutely nothing wrong with that in MA). A bachelor party, if you will. We went to the first game of the series and I witnessed my first live Twins win since the second-to-last game at the dome. My Fenway Twins record now stands at an impressive 1 and 5. The rest of the crew went to the Saturday game where they experienced bouts of heavy rain and even heavier bouts of lackluster Twins performances. Shocking, I know. The weather, combined with the previous night's revelry left the gang in low spirits and night two of the bachelor weekend in serious jeopardy of ending before dark. Luckily, Mike Hennies single-handedly saved the evening with his indomitable spirit and some well timed rounds of raspberry kamikazes. People left rested and happy. Which was good.

After three days of regular life, we headed back to MN for Liz's brother Mike and his fiance Vanessa's wedding. We saw some friends, smoked them some pork shoulder for their rehearsal dinner tacos, saw the nieces and nephews, watched as Mike removed Vanessa's garter with his foot at the dance (a first in the DJ's 20 years of DJ'ing, he said), which were all "ups." And then went to our first Twins game at Target Field where the impressive Twins REDACTED the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of REDACTED to REDACTED, which was total bullREDACTED. But then we realized the sun was shining, we were with our family, there was Summit, and we got our picture taken with TC, which made everything good again.

Poutine is Keen

2011-04-04T20:46:00.012-04:00

I know this has become somewhat of a travel blog recently but I'm afraid that's about the only interesting thing we've been doing or thinking lately. So here we go again.

Toronto: adapted from the the Mohawk phrase tkaronto, meaning "where there are trees standing in the water," a reference to a place where Hurons and other natives drove stakes into the water to support fish nets. Radiocarbon dating of some of the surviving stakes reveals that they were in use more than 4,000 years ago. Today, it is a place where we went to to last weekend. There, we visited our friends Missy and Rob from the last blog post and went to the Twins season opener. So I guess you could say we were trying to catch the fish of cross-border friendship with the stakes of...baseball bat, something, something, metaphor, metaphor.

We hit the CN Tower on Friday afternoon and took an elevator to the top. You could see far, both outwards and downwards.

Here is the view from Missy and Rob's condo, they live on the 42nd floor facing the lake and have a much nicer view than they did at their previous place in Harlem.

That night, we "went" to the Twins Blue Jays "game" at Rogers Centre. I say "went" because we were behind glass in a party room in the attached hotel, which made it hard to get into the "game." I say "game" because, well, if you watched you know. But hey, the "tickets" were free and I met a guy from Scotland. It's always interesting to see how the hometown fans react to people in visiting team jerseys. In Toronto, their demeanor could probably best be described as "surprised."

Missy, a fitness juggernaut, had mentioned that she was training for a triathlon and suggested I bring my gear and join her for a run. I said sure, but that my max would be about 10 miles. Assuming the distance was negotiable, I failed to mention that I'd never run that far outdoors and hadn't done so in over a year. Unfortunately, there happened to be a bridge over a river that dumped into Lake Ontario exactly five miles down the shore from their building. A physical landmark made it harder for me to just say "well, you keep going, I think I'll turn around now." Running a lot faster than my normal pace in order to keep up with little Miss afterburners and having forgotten my non-chafing running skivs, I was ready to turn back well before the bridge of return. But hell, I figured I'd just gut it out to the center of the bridge then slow way down or even walk on the return trip while Missy got in the extra four miles she wanted to do. Instead, Missy said she'd just turn around with me and continue on once she returned me to home base. "Shit...I mean, great!" I thought. So I tried to forget my severe case of red rider and let my manly pride carry me to the finish. I made it, which I probably wouldn't have without someone to pant/talk to. Although I would not have won any sexiest crotch competitions (that trophy case is getting full anyways), my chafage was not life threatening and I was able to sight see on foot the rest of the afternoon and evening, albeit with a slight hobble and a pronounced pirate gait.

It helped that our first stop was a busy public market where Liz found us a deli specializing in peameal bacon, which is sort of like Canadian bacon but waaaay better. On a wonderful kaiser roll with cheese and a fried egg it was life saving. Afterward we noticed a framed magazine cover showing said sandwich with the caption "One sandwich you need to try before you die." They were not kidding.

After a nap, we headed back out to a poutine shop called "Poutini." I'd often read about Canada's (in)famous fry-gravy-cheese curd combo but had never tried it. I didn't know how good something could be that nullifies the inherent crispy deliciousness of great fries with a gravy bath, but we were surprised how much we liked it.

Liz even had some, which likely comes as shock to those of you who know her feelings on cheese curds. And gravy.

I thought a place called Poutini was missing a golden opportunity to have a signature namesake cocktail:

The Poutini
3 oz vodka (you know, for potatoes)
1/2 oz beef gravy
2 cheese curds

Fill a cocktail shaker half way with ice. Add the gravy and swirl to coat the ice cubes. Pour off any excess. Add the vodka and shake, vigorously for eight seconds. Strain into a martini glass and garnish with the cheese curds. Plug nose and chug immediately.

After poutine we went to an exhibit of Tim Burton's artwork at a museum. It was really neat and creepy. No photography was allowed but he had this one sketch of this guy with this weird skeleton head with some tentacles and other weird crap coming out of it...trust me, it was awesome. Then we had a second, non-poutine dinner and then some superb Canadian IPAs at a neat little bar with a vast selection of beers I'd never heard of. There was a table of young people behind us that were obviously hammered, one girl was crying, glasses were getting broken, and some guy fell off his stool and would have ended up on the floor if Rob hadn't caught him. Then, out of the blue, one guy in the group turned around and quite lucidly asked us how we were doing and wished us a pleasant evening. Seriously, binge drinking? Is there anything you Canadians don't do politely?

All in all, it was a nice, clean, green, international city, with a quaint and convenient street car system, a fun little "hippy" district with second hand stores, ethnic markets, and bakeries, and poutine. Did I mention poutine?

After a heated Sunday afternoon of Dance Dance Revolution, we took a turboprop Bombardier back to Boston and called it a weekend. This weekend: Birmingham and the Florida panhandle. Hey I know, I'll blog about it.

The Last Time We'll Ever See NYC

2011-02-16T11:05:00.006-05:00

One of the perks of Boston life is the option of hopping a ridiculously cheap bus down to NYC for all the glitz, glamor and high prices of NYC without having to live in that rat-infested cesspool. It's even better when your friends Missy and Rob live there and let you crash on their Dolce and Gabana air mattress. That's right, nobody in "The City" would ever be caught dead with an Aerobed. So when we heard they were moving to the quaint Canadian hamlet known affectionately to the townsfolk as "Toronto," we figured we'd head down one last time to help them pack up their U-Haul and see them off, eh.

The bus ride down was uneventful except for the girl sitting two rows in front of us who was easily among the world's elite in the all-important irritation statistic "likes-per-sentence" (LPS). I estimate she was about a 4.5. I've seriously never wanted to punch a stranger in the face so badly in my life, and I've seen a few episodes of My Super Sweet Sixteen and Bridezillas. Luckily, headphones prevented any actual violence. We dropped our stuff off in their dee-lux 2nd floor sky apartment, and headed down to the East Village pub where they'd first met for their going away cocktail hour(s). Their friends were nice enough, but after a few hours of trying unsuccessfully to follow their conversations on wine, art, and poetry, Liz and I headed out back by the dumpsters to scratch each others butts and talk about how wicked awesome the Green Monster is, leaving them to enjoy their (what I can only assume were) Manhattans, having never seen a drink that wasn't a Narragansett tallboy.

Saturday we Tetrised their U-haul and then, having suddenly become completely the opposite of people described in the previous sentence, we headed out to the Guggenheim for an exhibit called "The Great Upheaval," which focused on the pre-WWI years. It was Kandinsky-heavy, and we both realized we kind of like his stuff. I had him confused with some other painter whose stuff looks like the scribblings of a child. Anyways, here were a few of our (non-Kandinsky) favs:

Les Joueurs Du Football by Henri Rousseau

Because those dudes look like total fruits.

And Eiffel Tower by Robert Delaunay

Because of the three categories into which I place art (Meh, Cool, and Badass), it is cool.

The museum itself was kind of the star, and I now have "rollerblade from the top of the Guggenheim" on my bucket list.

That night, we rejoined Missy and Rob and two of their friends at Keen's Streakhouse, a very cool old place with top quality meat. Missy, despite being very sick and and a pescatarian, troopered it out with us. Liz and I had the porterhouse for two but it would have fed three. The next morning we loaded the last of their stuff, wished them good luck in their new Canadian home, and headed back to Boston.

While we waited for the bus to bring us from the train station to our house, we overheard a conversation between two black people that would have made Rush's head explode. Basically, the middle aged guy in an Africa hat carrying a bag of frozen pizzas was the walking, loud-talking posterchild for the culture of victimhood railed against by my bootstrappy conservative friends. He went on and on about how whitey was keeping the black community down, gave an impassioned argument in favor of "reverse racism" (using the enemy's tactics against him, according to his definition), and went so far as to say that although he was sorry for the loss of life on 9/11, at least now people were "paying attention to the Muslims," and maybe black people should be setting off bombs to get people's attention. I very seriously considered telling the transit police that some guy was making terrorist threats (hey, if you see something, say something, right?). Not that I thought he was in any way serious about terrorism--the guy could barely form complete sentences--much less handle explosives, but I sure wouldn't have minded seeing him experience some real harassment from whitey. I was thinking the whole time that if one of the aforementioned conservatives I know would have been there I would have had to say, "OK fine, you win this round." But it made me think about a misconception I think many conservatives have: at least for me, I don't think all the people on welfare deserve it, (not that the idiot we saw was on welfare, he did have Red Baron Brick Oven pizzas, which aren't all that cheap...hey wait a second, maybe he was one of those fancy-pizza-eating welfare kings I always hear about...but I digress) but I am willing to pay for welfare in order to live in a relatively clean, safe urban area.

So in summary:
Overuse of the word like: bad
NYC: good
Steak: good
Art: cool
Reverse racism: no different than regular racism
Welfare: tolerable
Red Baron Brick Oven Pizza: good

Nee Walthers

2011-01-26T13:04:00.020-05:00

Liz and I recently joined several of my brother Mark and new sister-in-law Danita's friends and family in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, thus checking the last North American country off our list. Which, since we were born in the U.S., means we'd previously been to Canada. No small feat for people born in Minnesota. We're pretty worldly.

The wedding was at the Barcelo Maya Palace, a beautiful all inclusive resort complex on the Mayan Riviera. Everything was landscaped perfectly, the ocean and pools were aesthetically pleasing, and the staff were well trained at hiding their disdain for decadent, boorish Gringos. A typical day involved a civilized wake up time followed by a light breakfast of literally anything you could imagine and some kiddie pool time with Nathan and Josie, who as you can see, were dangerously close to surpassing the maximum level of adorableness allowable under Mexican law.

Then we'd do lunch, followed by activities ranging from poolside lounging to beachside lounging to fruity drink drinking, to trying to keep this mustachioed, fannypack packing, aqua sock wearing probable child molester away from the kids...

One day we even played two holes of pitch and putt and one hole of mini golf. Exhausting. We'd have dinner in small groups or all together; we had a great time hanging out with/meeting Danita's friends and relatives.

The ceremony and reception were very well done--maintaining the perfect balance between beachy casualness and lifelong commitment making gravitas. Not wanting to screw up my first and likely last best man speech, I was a little nervous. I'd concocted a story about wanting to honor our host country by giving my toast in Spanish, but not having been a Spanish speaker I'd written down some simple heartfelt wishes and had a coworker translate them for me. I then read a recipe for chicken mole I'd pulled off the Foodnetwork website and stuck into Google translate. The reception waiters said they could understand "a little" of what I said. I then went on to say that having my speech translated by a guy who hates me was probably a bad idea, but that I meant to say "May no one build a fence upon the border between your hearts. May your family operate with the ruthless loyalty to one another of a vicious drug cartel. And may the love and laughter in your lives be all inclusive." Touching in its borderline offensiveness, I thought. After some dancing and roboting at the reception, we moved the party to the much anticipated Jaguar (pronounced YAHG-you-are) Discotheque for some scantily clad go-go dancers, smoke machines, roboting, and general buffoonery.

On the day we left and had to leave, however, I woke up with something. To call this thing a hangover would be like calling a case of Ebola "a little bug I picked up." I swear it was sentient--teasing me with brief periods of hinting that it was letting up only to come back with renewed malevolence. It felt like Satan spawning demons in my brain. I sweated and shivered in rapid oscillations; every step felt as if my legs were in serious danger of giving out; my jaw ached for some reason (see previous sentence for a possible explanation); my heart beat irregularly; every breath had to be a conscious decision; I felt like I could barf at any minute yet I had the full knowledge that I wouldn't. Sleep was impossible since every time I closed my eyes for more than 20 seconds I felt like my heart might stop. Eating or even drinking more than an ounce of water? When our plane hit turbulence over the gulf of Mexico I thought "Well, if the plane goes down at least this whatever-you-call-it would be over." It was the culmination of five straight all-inclusive nights followed by poolside dog hair. Next time, partially inclusive might be a better option. With God as my witness, never again. Liz felt too bad for me to even say I told you so. Finally, 12 hours later in the Boston airport, I felt like I might just survive. We got home and I debated whether or not to check my email, foolishly did, and found out I had to be at a nine A.M. meeting with Alzheimer's disease collaborators an hour's drive away (through ~5 inches of fresh snow) at Harvard. Oh well, might as well rip the band-aid off quickly I figured. In hindsight, several of my symptoms might have been caused by the minor case of travelers diarrhea I had brewing, but Montezuma ain't got nothin' on Don Julio when it comes to vengeance.

Over the river and thru the woods and along the interstate and thru the tollbooths...

2011-01-03T21:19:00.023-05:00

New Englanders would never try to attempt a 24 hour cross country drive to attend a family Christmas. Heck, most of the people from Massachusetts have never been to Maine!! We Shervas have not become soft, and to prove so, we decided to drive home to Minnesota for the holidays. The drive took us about 24 hours. We drove straight through from Boston to Anoka only stopping for gas, bathroom breaks and coffee. Our drive to MN was pretty uneventful, there was very heavy fog in Indiana but we were able to just take our time and maneuver through without incident. I have to say, Ohio, you've got lovely turnpike reststops. I love having the option of Panera and Starbucks instead of having to go to a McDonalds. Indiana, seriously, Gary already sucks and people hate it. Could you finish up your road construction and fill your potholes. Are you trying to strand people there? You have the worst stretch of road in the 1400 miles we drove.

Phoebe loves to snooze in the driver's lap.

While in town we helped my sister Kris celebrate her 30th birthday. You really start to feel old when your younger siblings pass the 30 mark.

Following tradition, Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt Colleen and Uncle Dick's house. We look forward to her homemade french onion soup every year....mmmm....

Cousins!

Helping Colleen in the kitchen.

Opening presents with Grandma Donna.

Christmas Day we had brunch with the Sherva/Hamann side of the family at Nancy's house. Rick received a new hunting hat. Very Elmer Fudd...

We also were able to spend time with my Grandma Jan and Papa Benny at my mom's house. That is where we had our ham course for the day. MMmmmmm, ham.

Aren't these two cute!!

We tried to see as many people as possible, but of course there is never enough time. I'm glad to say that we got some great quality time in with our nieces and nephews. They are seriously the cutest kids. I'm not saying that because I'm biased. They are seriously better than all of your kids. Here's a little photo montage to prove it:

Emma and Josie in the aprons I sewed for them.

Emma is already developing a keen fashion sense. I caught her trying to steal my boots!

She also enjoys working on complex science problems with Uncle Rick while drinking chocolate milk.

Emma loves hanging out with Reilly, she copies everything he does...

Reilly is 8 and loves playing hockey. I was able to see his goalie skills in action.

Nathan on Christmas morning, not entirely feeling the best but looking very festive in his jammy jams.

Nathan and Josie get along pretty well and are great at sharing.

We seemed to slack a bit on Christmas Day with the camera. No worries, you'll see more of these two cutie pahtooties soon. We'll be headed to Mexico for Mark and Danita's wedding in a couple weeks where Josie and Nathan will be living it up at our all inclusive resort ordering a non-stop flow of Cheerios and chocolate milk while floating in the pool. They've got their passports and are ready to party.

Phoebe's favorite Christmas present was not the ZhuZhu pet that I thought she would chase around the house but this box from Costco.

My favorite surprise of the season was our upside-down Christmas Tree that Rick created for me.

Happy New Year!

L'esprit d'escalier

2010-11-24T09:23:00.002-05:00

It's been an interesting week in the world of bicycle commuting. A week ago today I left work early to go meet some people who were doing work on our house. I was enjoying the lack of traffic on the 1.8 miles of non-bike path road I have to travel in order to get home, zipping briskly down a small hill near our house, when the door to a Suburban flew open about six feet in front of me. The door hit the right side of my handlebars jackknifing and sending me over them. I flew a good 8 feet, executed a perfect shoulder roll, and got up without a scratch, despite being a bit stunned. I'd like to credit my catlike reflexes but in reality I just got pretty lucky. The fact that it's cold and I was wearing a jacket and cords helped as well. I had a pretty decent bruise on my calf the next day but all in all it was a best case scenario. The guy in the Suburban was pretty cool about it, although it occurred to me later that he never explicitly apologized and I suspect he may have been more concerned about me suing him over any bodily harm than the actual bodily harm I might have sustained. My bike was even unharmed, which didn't really matter since I have been riding my old one since my good one was stolen from outside work month or so ago. I hope I at least damaged his door. I have since been leaving a bit more space between me and parked cars, although being farther out in traffic is not really much better.

Anyways, l'esprit d'escalier is a French phrase for which we desperately need an English equivalent. Literally "staircase wit," it describes the situation where you think of an awesome comeback after the conversation is over, e.g. "The jerk store called and they're all out of you."

Example 2: A woman, to me, yesterday, after I slammed on the brakes to avoid running over her dog which had run out in front of me on the bike path at the last minute:
"Slow down, Jesus, you almost hit me!"
Me: "You're on the bike path, lady."
Her: "I don't give a shit!"
Me: "Ummm, yeah, I can see that!"
Ride off, shaking head.

A much better exchange, however, would have been:
"Slow down, Jesus, you almost hit me!"
"You're on the bike path, lady."
"I don't give a shit!"
"Well, then I guess I don't give a shit whether or not I run your dumb ass over. Sound fair?"
"Ummm, no!, sputter, sputter...you're a stupid head!"
"Yeah, go home and have sex with your dog you ugly old bag."
Ride off, triumphant.

But that wouldn't have been very Christian of me, now would it have? Some people.

Deercamp Blog Post #3

2010-11-13T15:04:00.010-05:00

Elvis has left the building. And by Elvis I mean most of a large deer, and by left I mean entered, and by the building I mean my freezer. It was the culmination of nine very interesting and nearly oppositely spent days.

Part two started when I literally jogged out of a poster session at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in D.C., sent off a grant application from the hotel, and caught a train and a plane to Atlanta, from where I flew to MSP, where I caught the light rail to my dad's car that he'd left at Fort Snelling. From there, I made good time to Goodland and arrived at five of eleven. Mark, Tom Stoltz and Dad were waiting and deer camp was on.

I got a decent night sleep thanks to daylight savings time and got out to my stand before sunrise. I crawled up in it to find it partially broken but was able to sit on one side. Here's Liz helping me carry the wood to build it circa 2000.

I didn't wait long before I heard footsteps and then thrashing to my right in some small alders across a small slough. I stood up and turned so I could see through the scope and saw a huge rack scraping on the alders. I though about shooting it straight down through the neck, but held off. It might have sensed or heard I was there, because it turned around and quartered away from me. It was through a little brush but I got a shot off at about 50 yahds and it felt good. The deer disappeared, however. I sat for a bit, packed up and went to have a look. To my great relief, it had dropped where I shot.

As all deer hunters know to varying degrees, that's when the "fun" stop: walk back to cabin for a knife since I couldn't carry one on, walk back to deer, gut deer, walk back to cabin to wait for dragging help since it was a lost cause with me alone as I found out when I nearly herniated gutting it, wait for Mark and Tom, bring my dad a knife with which to gut the deer he'd since shot since he'd forgotten one too, drag deer across the slough through which I'd shot, meet dad with 4-wheeler, drag deer #1 to the sight of deer #2 which had expired mercifully close to the trail, drag both deer back to cabin for hanging and tenderloin removal. Whew.

And then we rested while I experimented with making the deer I'd shot's heart. I simmered it for a few hours in several changes of lake Cropless' finest, then gave it a final simmer in a glaze I'd improvised out of whatever was at the cabin (soy and ketchup based if I recall). I then sliced it thin, salted, peppered and seared it quickly in a scorching hot cast iron frying pan. It was delicious in my opinion, and everybody else at least pretended to like it. Waste not want not I always say. I'd brought the liver back too but decided one organ was offal enough.

Tom shot a nice eight pointer in the late afternoon, so we repeated the process with it. Then we had fun, card games, visits from Eddie and his young entourage, cousin Jason, and uncles Dale and Denny. I made small drives to Mark the next day, who'd only seen one deer and several timberwolves exiting a den. Separately. That was it for my hunting. We then again rested, enjoyed the unbelievable weather, received a visit from one Dave Strand, and steeled ourselves for the animal to meat conversion travails to come.

On Monday morning we got up and loaded the deer onto cars and tied them down, drove them back to Mark's house and hung, skinned, and butchered Tom's deer. I returned to the world of the presentable at my mom's, got fed, and slept soundly. The next day my dad and I got to work on my deer shortly before noon with the help of a sweet, newly purchased deer hanging pulley system from Fleet Farm. We made relatively quick work of it since I do my fine cutting at home. We took a quick break to head over to Vinafera Wines and Ales, where through an exceedingly unlikely series of events we found Westrum talking to our friendly neighborhood wine shop owner Nesh on his first visit to the store. We had a chat, bought some lovely wines, ales, and spirits, and headed back to Mark's to wait for his and Tom's help on the third and final deer. We made quick work of it, and it was again off to mom's to wash off the gristle.

Wednesday was deer-free, and I helped my mom prepare for a nice dinner at Alli and Niko's for Mark's day before birthday. We had a lovely meal and I got in some face time with Josie, who is babbling regularly and hilariously, and Nathan, whose arm has only gotten better.

I stayed on the couch at my dad's that night and got up around four to head to MSP. I was soon tentatively hoisting my weighed-to-slightly-over-fifty-lb-by-a-luggage-scale-of-unknown-accuracy cooler (to account for the ice pack within) onto the much more accurate airport luggage scale where it weighed in at an eerily accurate 50.0 lbs. I was given no further troubles, which has not been the case in one of my three attempts at flying with raw meat. Still, I can't really overstate the feeling of relief I felt when the cooler of hard earned venison came off the belt and made it into the trunk of our car. The relief of seeing Liz was pretty great also.

Later that day, I got my first ever massage at the salon where Liz used to work. I was a bit nervous and I froze and said yes when the girl asked me if I'd ever had a massage before. Although this was technically true, my previous massage (foot) was from an old Chinese man in a Chinese bath house/brothel. She said, great, then just get under the covers and I'll be back. Realizing I might have missed out on critical massage-getting information and that the etiquette for this massage might be profoundly different from my last one, I just used common sense. When in doubt, keep undies on, I figured, so I just laid down and thought about what I was going to tell her about the cuts, bruises, and serious burn I'd obtained while stumbling through the woods procuring meat. It turned out she was from Maine and familiar with deer hunting, and at least had the decency not to treat me like a leper. It was very relaxing. I made tenderloins that night and slept well.

Today, I re-trimmed and vacuum sealed the haul. It was substantial. Which is good since it was in some way lifted by, dragged by, or splattered across me on the majority of the previous five days. Backstrap carpaccio tonight!

Panhandling 101

2010-09-23T15:04:00.003-04:00

The other day while waiting for a light to change as I biked home, a guy in a suit came running across the street waving at me. Full of good will towards all humanity having just provided two young Chinese tourists with friendly and accurate directions to the nearest T stop, I decided to wait and hear what he had to say. He asked me if I could do him a huge favor to which I responded that it would of course depend on the nature of the favor. He then launched into a big story about his car having a flat tire which required a $12.95 patch kit that could be purchased from the auto parts store down the street which would allow him, a "professional with Verizon", to pick up his kid from school, and, he hates long stories but if he showed me the car and left some sort of collateral, could I please give him 13$. I just said no, I have to get home, but as I continued biking it occurred to me that his technique was exactly what I expect they would teach at a night school class on advanced panhandling...

Lesson 1: Get a suit. The importance of this can not be overstated.
Lesson 2: State a very specific need and know the exact dollar amount that would fill said need.
Lesson 3: Invoke the suffering of children.
Lesson 4: Assure "the mark" that you are "a professional" and not some sort of panhandler. Having a suit will greatly increase the credibility of this claim.
Lesson 5: Have some sort of corroborating evidence to back up your story, such as a car with an actual flat tire.
Lesson 6: Have a good reason why you, a professional in a suit, do not have access to $12.95.

Ooh, apparently he was so excited to put his new knowledge to work that he couldn't wait around for the all-important sixth lesson. Kind of like Luke leaving Dagobah before completing his Jedi training and getting his hand cut off.

Man, won't I will feel like a jerk if the guy's wallet was in his other suit and his children got taken away due to his tardiness in picking them up. Somehow, despite that possibility, I still slept OK.

Ireland

2010-08-25T13:46:00.023-04:00

Leprechauns. Irish Spring. Potato famines. Lucky Charms. Fungi the gay dolphin of Dingle. Now that I've gotten the obvious, cliched Ireland joke topics out of the way, allow me to beat each one to death individually and in much greater detail. We got to Dublin around the same time as our traveling companions Erin and Jon Sadler, picked up our sweet Land Rover, and headed north after visiting the famous Guinness mines that our guidebook, Rock Steven's Ireland, said not to miss. The driving, handled by Jon and Liz, was interesting. The turns and round-abouts didn't seem to pose a big challenge but figuring out the correct distance between the oncoming traffic on the right and the curbs/shrubs on the left proved a little difficult on the narrow, 100 km/h roads. No accidents occurred despite our snooty GPS lady's best efforts to direct us down every 2-meter-wide horse path on the island.

It also took a while to stop thinking "Watch the road for fook's sake!" every time the front seat passenger turned around to say something to the back seaters and "Who would let a six-year old drive a car!" every time we passed a car with a kid in the front. Other than that, adjusting to the Irish lifestyle was all too easy once we figured out a few basic questions such as whether or not ordering coffee in Ireland got you one with whiskey by default unless you ordered it America. It didn't, sadly. We also wondered what they call Irish car bombs. We described them to a few different bartenders and none of them knew what we were talking about. We (I) also pondered whether every good-bye in Ireland was an Irish good-bye and whether that made actually saying good-bye to an Irishman impossible. Yeah...think about it.
Our first stop was the Giant's Causeway which was pretty awesome. Volcanoes: is there anything they can't awesomeize?

Liz at Giant's Causeway

Erin and Jon crossing the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

Dunluce Castle

The next day we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which were really, really high. They have a section with retaining walls but those walls end and there's a sign telling you not to go any farther. There's nobody guarding it however so people go to where you can look straight down at a drop that would most certainly ruin your day.
The second night we stayed at Ashford castle, a 19th century home built for the Guinness family. Activities available to guests include golf, equestrian, trap shooting, and falconry. Instead, we stayed up all night with some fresh-out-of-rehab trust fund kid named Don and let him buy us drinks and show us off limits sections of the castle due to his having been coming there for 20 years and being on a first name basis with all the staff. It was a fun night and I even found an unopened Cuban Cohiba somebody had left behind (I know, castle people, right?) and gave it a good home. As Erin succinctly put it the next day, we kind of made that castle our bitch. I think old man Guinness would have been proud. Or appalled. Or both. Anyways, here's to you, Don.

Enjoying our evening at Ashford Castle - Cong

The next day we made a short drive to Galway, a traditional pub and music city on the west coast. It wasn't much for scenery but the music was good, we had conversations with nearly everyone we were within five feet of, and some 20-year-old Ron Weasley look alike took us to Club 903 after the respectable pubs closed.

The next day we were off to Dingle via the Burren. The Burren is one of the most desolate areas in all of Ireland. During one of noted British asshole Cromwell's campaigns in Ireland, one of his generals said of the Burren, "There isn't tree to hang a man, water to drown a man nor soil to bury a man." And thus the residents were spared from Cromwell's protestant murdering. So they had that going for them. We though it was pretty. After a GPS lady-directed goose chase over some of Ireland's narrowest roads, we popped out at a ferry station which took us across the River Shannon onto the Dingle Peninsula, one of the most picturesque shorelines in Ireland and the westernmost point in Europe.

Crossing the River Shannon

Jon and Erin

"The next parish over is Boston," Rick Steve claims the residents are fond of saying. We had to drive across Connor Pass, a one lane road with steep and deadly drops on one side, to get into the town itself. It was exciting, especially since I didn't have to drive it.

The driving loop around the peninsula was fairly breathtaking and we stopped at this 12th century church to renew our wedding vows by touching our thumbs together through a hole in a pre-Christian ogham stone that was already there for hundreds of years when they built the church and saying "I swear to God." Wedding vows, pagan style.

A little less formal the second time around.

We even got a little golf in at a pitch and putt with a very nice backdrop. Jon won.

In Dingle, there lives a (according to Erin and John's Irish friend Mark) gay dolphin named Fungi (FOON-ghee). People go out on boats to see him. What makes him gay, you ask? Risque posters of Flipper on his bedroom walls? A lifelong dream of performing on Sea World, the Dolphin Broadway? A Google search for Fungi+Dingle+Gay+Dolphin yielded a link stating that people think he's gay because he prefers the company of humans to that of his own pod and that he often has bite marks on him that people hypothesize might be the result of unwanted sexual advances made towards other male dolphins. So basically humans are his interspecies fag hags. And also, our IT guy now thinks I have a thing for hot, same-sex scatological mammal-on-mushroom action.

From Dingle, we made our way to Kilkenny, a medieval brewery town in the countries interior. On the way, we stopped in Killarney National Park and the Rock of Cashel, a spooky church ruins built on a defensive high spot that'd been fought over for centuries. Kilkenny itself was decent and had a castle.

Rock of Cashel

From Kilkenny, we completed our loop back to Dublin where we toured Trinity College's library, home to the Book of Kells, a 9th century illustrated version of the gospels written by Celtic monks that obviously took a very long time to complete.

Coffees on the Quad at Trinity College

That night, we met Mark and Finola, the aforementioned, Italy-met friends of Erin and Jon for Italian food and Irish merriment. They were pure Irish gold and we were hip deep in lively conversation practically before names were exchanged. Mark has apparently done some serious face sucking with the Blarney Stone.

We left early the next morning sad to leave but happy to be headed home. We never saw any leprechauns, although we did see a leperchaun colony. Wee fingers and pointy little noses strewn everywhere. Very sad. I already miss Irish breakfast, which consists of meat, including blood sausage. Mmmmmm.

Two-wheeled tough guy

2010-08-13T13:46:00.002-04:00

If there's one thing I've learned from the cyclists vs. drivers feud, and from life in general, it's that a lot of people are A-holes and/or clueless to the impact their actions have on others. I see it almost every day, from the crosswalk-blocking, into bike lane-swerving drivers to the bikers who ride the wrong way down one ways and make drivers with green lights stop while they cross on red. My favorite Boston biking moment was when an obnoxious woman in a SUV on her cell phone came barreling around a left turn on a green (not a green arrow), slammed on the brakes at the last second to avoid taking out line of bikers who were crossing the street on a walk signal, and screamed "IT IS A GREEN LIGHT!" out her window. "You are an idiot!" I replied, which got a laugh from a few of the other nearly recently deceased pedal commuters. A few months ago I had the dubious honor of giving the finger to possibly the oldest man who's ever been given the finger after he made a left turn right into me, slamming on his brakes only at the last second. We had eye contact the whole time. When I flipped him off he said "Aaaaaagh." A-holeism knows no age. I certainly don't follow all the rules of the road, but when I cross on a red light I make sure nobody is coming and if I briefly ride on the sidewalk to avoid some obstruction I make sure to slow way down and give pedestrians a wide berth.

The bike path I ride on is split, one road for bikes and one for peds. I rarely see bikers on the pedestrian path, but I always see peds on the bike path. It's fine, the bike path is farther from the road and feels more "parky." If I was out with my kids I'd want them to be as far away from the street as possible. But I would also watch them like hawks to make sure they didn't run out in front of speeding cyclists, and I damn sure wouldn't allow the three dogs I was walking to completely obstruct the path. I admit to taking some pleasure in scaring oblivious people as I zip past them with six inches to spare at 15 MPH. My "scare them straight" plan backfired once when a large man took an unexpected step to the left and I hit him and bounced into the grass. I was unhurt, he was unhurt, and he was not angry and apologized (which was lucky for me given his size).

My anger at A-holes had remained internal, however, until I had verbal altercations with two of them this week. The first guy, a "biker", was riding his Magna (Huffy) around in circles in a street while talking on a cell phone. As I passed him and turned onto the bike path, he decided to also turn onto the bike path, and clipped my back tire which almost caused him to wipe out. I just looked back and kept riding. He caught up to me at a stoplight and said (start Puerto Rican accented font) "So you just hit somebody on the street and don't say no sorry no nothing?" (end Puerto Rican accented font) I told him that it was him who had hit me, since bikes don't come with reverse. He mumbled some vague tough guy threats which caused me to laugh at him. He mumbled some more vague tough guy threats centering around something or other not being so funny once he kicked my ass, but then took off riding down the sidewalk in true tough guy fashion. I wondered if he'd be waiting for me the next day but he wasn't, wasting an awesome "I don't really want to fight you but if you insist upon it I will bring the full force of my high school wrestling experience to bear on your ass" speech. Trust me, it was epic.

The next day I was riding in a block-long stretch of road where the asphalt right next to the curb is a mess, a real cyclist deathtrap. So for one block I rode four feet out in the lane. After I'd passed the bad stretch and moved over as far as I could, some A-hole (also in a SUV) passed me and yelled "Ride on the F-in side!" at me. Flush with tough guy vinegar and piss from the day before, I caught up to him at a stoplight and knocked on his window. Also in true tough guy fashion, he didn't want to roll it down. Finally he did and I calmly explained that the condition of the road in that small stretch is terrible and that it is too dangerous to ride on the far right edge. He looked sullen but didn't say anything back. I was wondering what he'd do if and when he passed me again but he never did. I know I shouldn't start anything with anybody in the event that the person is an actual tough guy, or worse, a coward with a pistol but sometimes I can't help it.

The strange thing about biking and the stress in induces is that it doesn't produce any of the somatic changes normally associated with frustration. Something about the physical exercise prevents the white knuckle, vein popping response I get on the rare occasion I drive in rush hour traffic. Maybe it's because my BP is already elevated and my palms sweaty. In any case, I can be riding along wishing butt herpes on a motorist's children and their children's children and still be totally calm. It's a very strange zen-like anger. Someone should do a study. Maybe A-holes are just exercise deprived.

Nice little Saturday...

2010-07-31T16:28:00.003-04:00

After sleeping in and a leisurely stroll through the Roslindale Village Farmer's Market, it was decided that we must get some exercise in on such a beautiful day. A little exercise turned into a bike expedition around Boston. Stops were made along the way to refuel with Gelato and frozen yogurt. Neither of us had had the pleasure of biking along the Esplanade until the Saturday. It is such a wonderful part of the city. Beautiful benches, shade trees, floating piers offering you the chance to dip your toes in the Charles River, and well groomed walking and biking trails. Below is a map of our route:

About 20 miles total. We followed up our ride with a traditional summer feast of grilled bratwurst, corn on the cob (from the above mentioned farmers market - from the oldest operating farm in the city limits of Boston), and a cucumber/tomato salad. Later that evening we went to see The Black Keys. The Black Keys played at the Bank of America Pavilion located in South Boston right on the waterfront. It is a somewhat open air pavilion with a large canopy covering most of the seats. The weather was perfect and the Black Keys put on an excellent show!

It was a nice little Saturday.

MN

2010-07-28T13:45:00.017-04:00

Although I thought I must have missed a trip somewhere, it turns out that it is true that I hadn't been back to MN since Christmas until this last weekend. I got all giddy as we dropped through the clouds and I saw the Minneapolis skyline to the north. As we taxied to the gate, the clouds parted and the sun peaked through as if to say "Welcome back, Rob."

"Rick. It's Rick."
"Rick, of course. That's what I meant."
"Whatever, Manitoba."

Wait, where was I? Oh yes, the trip. It was basically the best weekend I've had in a while. I purposely didn't plan much in order to just hang with the immediate fam, but ironically I ended up seeing more people than we normally do in a week-long trip and without the usual running around crazily trying to schedule brief visits with everyone. I even ran into my aunt Lois at Costco in the few hours she was home between RV trips. I got some good QT in with Josie and Nathan; they were not afraid of me as I'd feared they would be. Nathan is walking, talking, and throwing anything he can get his hands on. I have never seen a kid who liked to throw "bahs" as much as him. Alli and Niko have him on a pitch count so he doesn't get worn out too early in his career. Here he is preparing to throw a washer at his unsuspecting cousin.

I believe 3-4 hundred per day is about the norm. Josie is very close to walking and talking and enjoys swinging.

Mark and Danita let me have some of my friends over to their house on Friday night and we grilled and chatted. The next day was My Two Dads day. First, Mark and I took Josie to the Red Bull Flugtag at Harriet Island where we were lucky enough to witness the setting of a new world record.

Later, Jeff Lee and I took young Iris and Jeff's new fishing boat out on Coon lake where I even got to catch a few northerns. It would have been my second summer in a row without catching a fish which is unacceptable...of course I bought a license, what a silly question.

Sunday we had a little BBQ at Alli and Niko's house that was attended by Uncle Myron, visiting from his new home in Norway. I hadn't seen him in probably 6-7 years and he is doing well. We played a game of cribbage speaking in southern accents, which I highly recommend. I also saw Aunts Becky and Lori whom I wasn't expecting to see. Niko's marinated NY strips were superb.

Monday I went to a game at that new Target Field I'd been hearing so much about. I was pretty disappointed. The stands were totally empty and they didn't even turn the scoreboard on. Wait, what? The Twins were on the road? Then who were those guys I watched playing baseball? An elaborate hallucination in my head, you say? Well that would explain why they were all wearing pink tuxedos and the right fielder was an omelet. Weird. In any case the two-dimensional zombie Twins beat Chairman Mao, Gargamel, the omelet, and the surviving members of The Jackson Five eleventy bajillion to potato.

What famous Twins reliever spat out these sunflower seeds in the bullpen? Crain? Guerrier? It's hard to know for sure but they tasted kinda Mijares-y.

To round out the trip we met up for pizza on Monday where I saw cousins Stacey and Tammy and first cousin once removed Erin Brown. It was a great trip which ironically made me more than a little sad. It's easier to be gone when you don't see what you're missing. The sky opened up a can of torrential downpour literally the second I walked outside to get in my dad's airport-bound car early Tuesday morning as if to say "OK, you've had your fun now you best be getting back to where you came from, Boston boy."

"Fine, I was out of clean underwear anyways."

We're Talkin' Softball

2010-06-23T15:19:00.005-04:00

Anybody who's anybody knows that Liz and I greatly looked forward to Thursdays in MN, mostly because it was co-ed softball night on team Monkey Knife Fight. The fact that there were delicious 2-for1 Summits and cheap, not-entirely-disgusting pizza at The Pizza Pie and I after the games didn't hurt either but it was mostly about playing softball on a pretty good team in a pretty bad league. We never got on a team in St. Louis and other than one fill-in role in one game during a trip home (batted .500 for that season), we took a three-year hiatus from the "sport." Meanwhile, Monkey Knife Fight won the league championship without us, which "hurt". So I was pumped when, half way through the season, our neighbors invited us to play on their team last summer. Their team was ungood, having failed to win a game prior to our acquisition. It was a fun team none the less, populated mainly by lab rats (thus the team name, The Lab Rats) originally hailing from other countries. It's also fun to be a better than average player on a pretty poor team, wowing them with skills such as pop-up catching and knowing when there's a force out. Alas, team captains Chris and Mandy had a baby this spring so the team was disbanded.

Instead, Chris and I have been playing with our other neighbor Paul's (of Paul and Diedre fame) team, Dedham VFW (I know, what kind of stupid name is that?). It is an entirely different game than what I have been used to playing. First, it's a men's league, which ups the competitiveness substantially. Second, it's modified fastpitch, meaning that although you can't windmill your arm, certain pitchers (usually cagey veterans in their sixties) can sling the ball in pretty rapidly, probably in the low-50 MPH range. Also, you can leave the base as soon as the ball leaves the pitcher's hand although the catcher can throw to the base you left and it's a force out. People get picked off, albeit infrequently. I was a little nervous playing in my first game, what with not wanting to suck and all. I got subbed in at 2B after the started had struck out thrice, but didn't get up to bat. In the second game I hit two Texas league doubles and made two nice put outs on bad throws at second. Since then I've been hitting well over .700 despite probably a third of my hits being bloops. I either hit 'em hard or so weakly that the outfielders don't have a chance. They all look the same in the scorebook, as the saying goes. So far we're 9 and 5, good for 4th place out of 8 teams in the league. Yesterday we played a team of mostly Spanish speaking gentlemen, four or five of whom were in the 5'5'' range and several of whom wore the number nine. We were joking about there having been a tense Mexican standoff about who got to wear "9" but fortunately someone came up with the "everybody can wear 9" solution before there was bloodshed (shortest guy: "Even me?" Other guys: "Yes, Pepe, even you.") Borderline interesting fact: Spanish speakers yell "quatro" when telling someone to throw the ball home. I maybe expected "casa."

The people on the team are pure Boston gold. We normally head down to the VFW after the games for cheap beer and gambling. Any kind of gambling. Darts? Five dollar buy-in tournaments. Poker games? Affirmative. Celebrity dead pool? Oh you better believe there's a celebrity dead pool (10$ buy in, pay out depends on how young your pick died). Many bars out here have video keno in them, sort of like pull tabs. We play "ghetto keno" however, which means everyone picks a number and you win if your and only your number comes up, dollar a round. The first week a ~100 dollar pot was won by the coach's 13 year old son. Our shortstop (currently benched by a bout of gout), the first person to consistently call me Ricky since 1984, was giving him grief about buying a round with his winnings. "You effed up my playoff pool last year, I don't owe you nothin'!" says the kid. The next week, the same guy was asking him if he'd blown his 100 bucks yet. "It was only 80 after I paid back this ass clown!" says the kid, referring to his father who'd fronted him all the dollars the week before. The dad calls the kid "Shithead," though, so turnabout, fair play, etc. In addition to these characters, there's a bookie, a guy who generally shows up still hammered, sits on the bench and has a few more beers, then goes in and plays a few innings of pretty solid ball, a guy who wears blue Bike coaching shorts that leave very, very little to the imagination, and a gay guy whose home run percentage is probably .700 (I have since been told that the guy is not actually gay, they were just "messin' with me"). Bettter story if he's gay but whatever. I understand the post-season party is epic to there's that to look forward to.

In the Footsteps of Dr. Foster

2010-06-02T12:53:00.009-04:00

Had a nice little Memorial Day weekend out here. We ate ribs not once, not twice, but thrice. We also did some masonic work necessitated by the excessive spring rainfall:

Who patched up this retaining wall?

Put cancer in Lance Armstrong's ball?

Wee Dooooo. Wee Dooooooo.

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but we also hid an ancient secret behind one of the stones that the world's most powerful entities would literally kill for. Which stone, you ask? Well, the trick is realizing that the stones follow a non-Euclidean geometric pattern superimposed over a Fibonacci grid corresponding to the chapter headings in Plato's Republic. Once you figure that out, it's pretty obvious. What secret, you ask? Oh, simply a collection of arcane documents that would blow the roof off of everything we think we know about God, the origins of the universe, secrets of the ancient Mayan calendar, the stock market, and Sasquatch. Fine, it's a complete set of 1989 Donruss baseball cards and a copy of that Playboy that has Shannen Doherty in it.

On Monday, we, like Dr. Foster before us, went to Gloucester. It was sunny despite some haze from those wildfires up in Quebec, so no puddles were encountered and if they had been, we would not have stepped in them since we were on bicycle rather than foot. Thus, I think we'll probably go there again.

Travellers From Multiple States Converge On The Very Heart Of Darkness

2010-05-21T10:55:00.028-04:00

Minnesotans from as far away as Houston, Boston, Minnesota, and Manhattan converged on Manhattan last week for a journey into the Heart of Darkness: the Bronx, or more specifically the new Yankee Stadium.

Our Colonel Kurtzes were not rogue military officers, however, but rather A-rod, who loves steroids, and Jeter, who may or may not be a peter eater. And in this version it was the colonels who hacked us to death with their machete bats vicariously through our hometown nine. But I'm getting ahead of the story a bit. The Boston delegation of Liz and myself started our trip through the jungles of western Massachusetts via the river of the Mass turnpike, where we passed the highest point (1,724 feet) on I-90 until South Dakota en route to Schenectady, NY. It was also Liz's birthday. We went there to attend Liz's cousin Lauren's senior photography exhibit at Union College. Her work has been described as "gritty" and "in black and white" and "good." Her pics should be up here soon if you want to check them out.

I don't know if we were told any other tales of old Schenectady, although we found out that the Erie Canal used to run through it, and also that the Erie Canal had been moved. The next day we drove into the Finger Lakes region, so named due to giving someone the finger having been invented there. Or because they're long and narrow. Whatever. There are seven of them so that explanation doesn't make sense unless you're a super-Mennonite. The important thing is they make good wine there, especially Riesling since the climate is a lot like Germany's. We headed south along lake Seneca, stopping at several wineries recommended by Liz's uncle Dick, Riesling connoisseur and frequent visitor to the region. It was pretty country and we left with a trunkfull of tasty white.

The next leg of our journey involved an early morning drive to a commuter rail station about an hour outside of NYC. We took a train to Harlem, where we met Drew at Minnesota's own Missy and filthy Canadian Rob's deluxe apartment. NY governor David Paterson lives in their building, but apparently he has a hard time seeing the benefits of living there. We dropped off our bags, donned our Twins gear, and took the subway to the ballpark. The stadium itself was universally panned. It had zero character save for the picket fence arches or whatever they're called that were also present at the old park. It was a fitting venue for the best and most soulless team money can buy to play their home games (upon further thought I believe that only A-rod, Teixeira (a two-time violator of the I before E rule), Sabbathia, and Burnett fit the bought player stereotype, but I'm not one to let facts get in the way of some good Yankee bashing). Unfortunately, the stadium's lacklustitude was exceeded only by the level of play exhibited by the Twins, who failed to put together anything in the way of offense. It was hat day, so at least I did my share to bleed the beast.

After the game, we rendezvoused with the remaining members of our expedition party, Ross and Gina, who, having seen A-rod's grand slam sink the Twins the previous night, had spent the day visiting museums while we swilled 12$ beers. We then went on a whirlwind walking/eating/train riding/buzz management tour of NYC, which culminated in a late night all-access VIP trip up the Empire State Building made possible by the executive card Missy obtained while doing real estate business with the ESB folks. I believe she's trying to sell all or part of the landmark, but considering today's economy and the spate of giant gorilla attacks of late I see it sitting on the market for awhile. Anyways, the views were nice.

The next day we walked around the city some more, during which time Lady Liberty was viewed, Ground Zero was somberly noted, Times Square was pointed at, Central Park was partially walked through, Anthony Bourdain's restaurant Las Halles was sat in, and Glee's Jane Lynch was walked past but unfortunately not high-fived. After that we loaded up Drew and drove back to Boston for the 3rd and final leg of the journey. Once on our home turf, we golfed, visited Cheers and Old Ironsides, made Drew eat oysters, and witnessed another sad Twins loss to the slightly less evil Red Sox. Not knowing when to quit, Liz and I completed the trifecta of Twins suckage last night. On the bright side, the first Twins victory we witness live this season will have to be on our first visit to target Field.

Back in STL

2010-04-26T16:38:00.007-04:00

A couple weekends ago Liz and I headed back to check on St. Louis, the Hennies', Soren, and the moral development of our Godson Oden. It was a perfect spring weekend in the Lou, sunny and seventyish. Mike rented me a sweet road bike and we got in good rides on Sat. and Sun., 60 or so miles total. There's a nice trail that starts by the arch and runs along the Mississippi, featuring underground railroad crossings, industrial wastelands, and some nice views of Old Muddy. We even got to see a special treat one day--a burnt out car near the statue of Lewis and Clark. Tourists were having their pictures taken with it.

Culinarily, things were hit and miss. Our first meal from Blues City Deli was great as always. The owner Vince knows his sandwiches. I've maybe had a few as good but probably none better. That night we hit Square One, the brewpub across the street from our old lofts. We got off to a bad start right away when our friendly neighborhood bartender Art didn't recognize us. To say we were regulars is a major understatement and I'd even given him a bunch of Simpsons loot when we moved. I wanted tickertape or at least a hug. The wings were solid although they were out of IPA, their best offering in my opinion. My burger came out well done and I sent it back. Hennies' fried flounder fish and chips, usually the best thing on the menu was over fried. And when Hennies tells you something about cooking oil and its proper use you can take it to the bank. Since we left they changed the law in MO to allow bars to distill their own spirits. I had a hop liqueur that was interesting and dang refreshing. The next day I had an awesome tongue torta from this Mexican place we used to go to a lot. Mmmmmmm, tongue. By far the worst experience we had was at Mosaic, an upscale tapas joint downtown. We waited 40 minutes for our first round of treats to come out. When we asked about it they told us a group of 40 had just put their order in before ours. I was unsure as to why they had to prepare that entire order before at least bringing us our damn cheese plate. We ended up leaving after a couple plates, walked down the street, and were face deep in excellent sushi within 10 minutes. Yelp was informed. Our final meal was breakfast at Rooster, our favorite crepe spot. They messed up my order there as well but it was still pretty OK.

Sunday we headed down to the Hennies ranch in the Ozarks. There, we burned a winter's worth of brush Mike had been saving. There are/were two other piles this size.

The inferno was pretty epic, nearing Texas A&M homecoming levels.

While we were hosing down the surrounding grass, I could see young Soren, or more specifically his lily white behind back by the cabin. "Hey Hennies, I think Soren's trying to take a dump," I said, expecting him to have a problem with it. Instead, he said, "Oh, is he over by his poopin' rock?" He was. When in the Ozarks...

Here's the pooper in question through the heat shimmer mirage thingy (is there an actual term for that?)

As many of you know Oden had a pretty rough first year due to lung issues and prematurity. When we were there last summer he was basically confined to his room due to the risk of infection and had to be on oxygen pretty much all the time. He's doing much better now and it was pretty neat to see him tearing around in the style accustomed to children. Basically, going outside is like Christmas and polka dancing all rolled into one for him after being cooped up and attached to machines his whole life. His Caring Bridge page is linked to the blog so we can keep up with the little tike.

Liz, Oden and Soren at the Botanical Garden

Oden starting to get a little tuckered out at the Botanical Garden.

Soren and Liz feeding the fish at the Garden.

It was a good weekend. I played my first softball game (scrimmage, actually) on Sunday. It's modified fastpitch which made it pretty interesting. I got on every time I was up but two of those were on errors and the third play could have been made. I wore my Monkey Knife Fight shirt. It was nice to give it some action, even if not on the team for which it was designed. We crushed an inferior team then went to the VFW (our sponsor) for beer. We played two dart tournaments and I was on the winning team both times, which netted me 40 bucks. Everyone on the team was super "nice" and unbelievably Bostonian.

Amicus Curiae

2010-03-25T10:52:00.004-04:00

I had my first* run-in with the law yesterday when I had to go report to jury duty at Suffolk County Superior Court. Unlike Liz who recently got to sit on a cool criminal case involving illegal machine guns, I was being considered for a civil case involving some oldish guy who fell in the parking lot of a bar in 2005. Booooo-ring. "Do you feel there are too many frivolous personal injury lawsuits" was one of the questions they asked everyone to consider in order to determine who was impartial. I was thinking that if a lawsuit is truly frivolous, isn't one too many? In any case, I had a high enough number that I was never even subjected to the thumbs up or down process from the judge or attorneys. The plaintiff's counsel was the stereotypical slimy lawyer, all cheap suit and jowls and thin mustache and thinning, slicked-back hair.

The day wasn't a total waste, however. They had a nice display in waiting room showing famous cases that had taken place in MA. I knew about Lizzie Borden, the "Trial of the Century" which took place in New Bedford in 1893. According to wikipedia, Lizzie was acquitted based on the fact that no murder weapon was found and no blood evidence was noted just a few minutes after the second murder. But in truth, she was convicted of delivering 39 and 40 whacks, respectively, but since the 40th and 41st were determined to have caused the deaths of her father and mother, respectively, she was acquitted. Interestingly, there was substantial fingerprint evidence at the scene which would have removed any doubt as to Liz's innocence or guilt, but the judge didn't believe fingerprint evidence was reliable.

I didn't know that the Sacco and Vanzetti crime/trial was held in Dedham, MA, otherwise known as the city where we go to Costco. It was a pretty interesting trial; I'd forgotten most of the ins and outs of the case that we learned about in school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti

After my long, three hour day watching the sausage of justice get made I met Liz for a really good steak sandwich that had blue cheese baked right into the bread. Now there's a precedent I can get behind.

* Not including:
Speeding, disfiguring card board cutouts for the purpose of scaring the crap out of Anoka cinema employees after hours (never charged, also acquitted on the secondary charge of accessory to school jeans ruining), failure to affix a tag to a legally obtained deer (convicted), suing a landlord for damage deposit (successfully), answering the door when the cops show up at parties (apparently not a crime if you're not a jerk to them), accessory to driving a mini-van into a fireworks storage facility (I was acquitted but my co-defendant was not. I believe that one went all the way to the Kansas supreme court), parking sticker fraud, misrepresenting a fraternity as a debate club for the purpose of fooling an innkeeper, and being in a dorm room in which alcohol was present (the last three were handled by the Gustavus Judiciary Board and I and my co-defendants were exonerated on all counts).

Schussssssssss

2010-03-08T16:21:00.012-05:00

We headed up to New Hampshire last weekend to ski the now tripod-free White Mountains. It was a pretty drive and took just over two hours to reach northern N.H. Our neighbors said "Wow, you guys are going way up there" when we told them where we were going. I think Minnesotans and east coasters have different ideas about what constitutes a long distance due to the large disparity in state sizes. We stayed in Lincoln which was about a 10 minute drive from Cannon Mountain where we skied.

We got up there too late to ski on Friday so we explored the area a bit. We were right by "The Old Man of the Mountain" which used to look like this:

but now looks like this:

Stupid erosion.

We found it funny that the image on N.H. license plates and highway signs is of something that no longer exists. We decided that their license plate slogan "Live Free or Die" is only slightly less negative than D.C.'s "Taxation Without Representation." We also saw an indian head:

and hiked to a "basin" over packed and melting snow trails in our street shoes. It was slippery. The basin turned out to be similar to a pothole, cool rounded shapes that get eroded out of rock by the long term swirling of smaller rocks.

That night we ate dinner at a local brew pub. The beer was decent but not awesome, same for the food. We sat at the bar which was pretty busy by the time we left. There had been two cougar-aged women hovering behind us for ~the last half hour we were there. I hadn't really noticed them but Liz said one of them was standing so close to her that she could feel her cougary booze and antelope meat scented breath on her neck. When we stood up to leave one of them said something like "You two go have fun by yourselves back in your hotel room." I said "You two have fun sitting on these bar stools." Only later did Liz explain to me that she was implying that we sat too long on said stools and/or they had more of a right to them than we did. So, philosophical question: if you are trying to be a smart ass but you are so bad at it that your target doesn't even realize you were trying to be, are you still an A-hole? Only a tree falling in an earless woods knows for sure.

I didn't take it too hard since if there's one thing I learned from Blue Crush, Dances With Wolves, Hostel, Doc Hollywood, and the Karate Kid Part 2, it's that locals don't like outsiders--especially city slicker outsiders--and if you want to gain their respect and get the town hottie to fall for you you must do so through:

1. Sports feats, possibly in head to head competition against the mean town champion who's skill level closely matches your own and is also vying for the affections of the aforementioned town hottie (chances are good, however, that he/she is actually a nice person and was only lashing out because he/she felt threatened by you. Alternately, their change of heart might be a ploy to get you to let your guard down so they can stick some sort of Oriental fan knife in your guts)

2. Killing buffaloes.

3. Walking pigs.

Also, if you don't somehow gain their respect they'll torture you to death. Also, sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and fall in love with NFL quarterback Jerry O'Connell.

Wait, where was I? Oh yes, skiing. I've been out west a handful of times, gone to the Porcupines in MI, and done most of the places in MN, but I didn't know what to expect from the east coast. Basically, I was impressed. It wasn't Whistler in size or height but it was better than MI and of course better than any place in MN. It had runs I was afraid to go down. Liz, skiing for her first time in 20 years (and she only went down the bunny hill once on that trip), did pretty well after an initial slow motion crash into a snow fence. By the end of the day she was turning quite well and doing hockey-style stops. More importantly, she had fun so we'll hopefully have a new winter activity to enjoy as a family. Here's video proof that she actually did it. We posted the video in 3/4 speed so you can actually see her technique.

kreusening

2010-03-03T20:58:00.004-05:00

So Chris Choukalas, S.F. based former Gustie M.D., mentioned kreusening on Facebook the other day and it reminded me of the conversation we had on the subject a few years ago. We were in STL or Chicago where somebody or other was drinking an Old Style and I don't think any of us recalled having noticed the can's reassurance that the product had been "Fully Kreuzened." In any case nobody there knew what it meant and we wondered whether, it being Old Style, kreusening was just some B.S. thing that every beer does or if we should be outraged that other breweries were offering incompletely kreuzened beer. I've been on a few brewery tours and I've never heard the process mentioned, but either way I kind of spaced on calling my congressmen to demand legislation requiring that it be completed once started. Chris' status update on it reminded me again so I did a little wikipediaing.

Turns out kreusening is the same thing as bottle conditioning, adding a little active wort to the finished product which allows the fermentation process to continue after bottling and supposedly cleans up the flavor of the beer by reducing levels of diacetyl and acetaldehyde. I've never been on the G. Heileman tour so I don't know what what they mean by "fully." Kinda makes you wonder what Old Style would taste like normal. Apparently worse than mediocre.

On the home front, we had a new addition to our back yard menagerie. An opossum. Big one. It walked outside our office window the other evening and went under our deck. I went out and bravely confronted it and which apparently caused it to die of terror. I didn't want to examine the body too closely due to the fact that they can carry rabies, so I left it for the raccoons, confident that the problem was solved.

The dog days of winter

2010-02-21T16:33:00.010-05:00

So AoL&R (yep, shorthand) reader and cancer battler Dave Strand was recently lamenting our lack of blog posts and so I explained to him that we've fallen into a a bit of a winter rut and haven't been doing anything interesting enough to warrant typing about it. Dave was having none of it and even provided the following suggestions for interesting activities in which we might participate: attend a Tea Party rally and get Sarah Palin's take on stem cell research and how Obama is the devil, set up a stand selling fake revolutionary war relics on the Freedom Trail, or stand on a peach crate at Copley Plaza and shout that Paul Revere was an alarmist.

All great suggestions, but not exacly our style. So rather than listen to any more of his new agey Carpe Diem B.S. or needy demands to be entertained during his recovery, I figured since it was 50 and sunny this weekend we'd go out and take a few pictures of some signs that I found mildly amusing and make them hilarious with zany captions.

You can take this road to Petco or else you can take the highway.

Whoever made this street a one way was a bit...wait for it...short sighted.

"Hello, 911? There's a huge fire in the orphanage downtown!"
"B.F.D."
"I knew you east coasters were a bit jaded but, damn."

Evelybody!

Oh sure, Wang is lawyer, Wang has a nicer sign--you think I don't know he's always been your favorite!? Nothing I do is ever good enough for you! Me so solly I couldn't go to law school like Wang. Well guess what mom and dad, I sell insurance and I'm damn good at it. That's right, his real name is Wang, and I'm Chong, but noooo, Wang said we needed American names so we turned our backs on our heritage! Well, my eyes are wide open for the first time and no, I will not sit down and I don't care if I'm ruining Chinese new year. And one more thing--Steven is not just my "butler." No, you're drunk!

Racsim: it's ALWAYS funny.

Leonardo

2010-01-22T12:06:00.009-05:00

Few things that can be had for ~15 bucks make me happier then a nice haircut after one is overdue. Well, sure--love, a child's laughter, sunsets--but come on, a straight razor with some hot lather, a nice smooth neck finished off with a slather of Bay Rum aftershave is right up there. There was a brief period when I went to an actual salon in St. Louis because someone recommended it when we first moved to town and I guilted myself into getting 3-4 more haircuts there to support the nice single mom stylist. But the 25 dollar price tag and the discovery that I don't really enjoy paraffin hand dips soon had me heading down the street to Wyoming Barbers. They trimmed my mad scientist eyebrows, which trumped parrafin. Plus, the pack of junior high girls constantly chasing me through the streets when I had the fancy haircuts got old after a while.

I had a good place in St. Paul, Schmidty's Sports Barbers, where you had your choice of the boxing coach or the Army Ranger or the Elvis-looking guy as stylists. My first guy ever was Merv on West Main in Anoka, him and Leon did good work; my dad still goes there.

I found Leonardo's Barber Shop right after moving to Boston. It's right down the street from us and might be my favorite place ever. Leonardo is probably pushing 70 and came to America from Italy by himself when he was 14. His yellowed barber's license on the wall is from 1961. I'm not sure from which era this dates:
I had to get one haircut at Liz's salon when Leonardo was back in Italy suing his sister for fraud after she cashed the bonds Leonardo's mother had left him in her will by forging a signature. He offered the sister a portion of the inheritance but she apparently wanted it all and he'd "rather see every cent go to lawyers than see her get a F-ing penny." He won. Here's a few things I learned yesterday while I was waiting for him to finish up on the old coot (just off camera) in front of me:

ACORN bought the last election, stole the last election, and caused the housing crisis (presumeably he didn't understand what stealing and/or buying means); proper shovelling technique (lift with your legs, take frequent breaks). No bleeding heart himself, Leonardo has much Catholic memorabilia hanging on the wall, along with three dollar bill with Clinton on it. Oh, and hats, lots and lots of hats. My favorite are these, however.

Can't go wrong with the astronaut. I once heard him fail to agree with some guy who made a borderline racist comment about an upcoming Carribean music festival, however, so there's that. He does good work, Leonardo does.

Christmas and New Years

2010-01-01T22:31:00.002-05:00

Our trip back to MN for Christmas was great. We avoided snowstorms, saw lots of family and people, bounced babies, and ate a lot. And also pooped a lot due to all the eating, which is good, you can't let that stuff sit in there. I've been having some (left) knee issues so I'd been taking a few weeks off from running to let it heal. After the holidays I'm several pounds heavier which probably won't help the knee once I start running again. It's a Catch 22 that will probably start a downward spiral which culminates in me being extracted from our bedroom via crane live on Discovery Health. We ate (abridged version): Manning's burgers with the Walkowiaks and Kovala, kim chi with herring (trust me, it's fusion) and Rulle Pulse (a Norweigan cured lamb slice of awesomeness) at my dad and Uncle Dale's bachelor pad, Famous Dave's with the Lees, Liz's aunt Coleen's annually awesome Greek spread, and Christmas day egg bake at Nancy's. I will not describe the poops out of respect for baby Jesus.

The kids had grown; Josie's cheeks are still epic, Nathan can still smile like a mofo, Reilly gave up a single goal in an 11-1 rout, and Emma can speak and ball crawl. Despite a full schedule, we relaxed a bit and genuinely enjoyed the yule. I even got to play junior high and stay up all night with Drew playing some treasure hunting video game. Family drama was non-existent, except for Christmas day night at the Niska's when my cousin Rory thought he was a turkey while on LSD. He started cramming stuffing up his "cavity" whilst singing showtunes. We rushed him to the hospital but unfortunately the doctors were unable to save him. They were able to recover most of the stuffing, however. You win some you lose some. Whoever thought of putting peanuts in stuffing was a genius.

We didn't send out x-mas or new years cards, so consider the following our yearly letter: When the Sherva family wasn't rolling around on our money pile or traveling the world philanthropizing children, we did a lot in 2009. Liz started a grad school program in preservation studies. Her division head called her the single greatest student she'd ever encountered in her 80+ years in academia, and her paper on our old neighborhood is considered the seminal work on Lafayette Square history. Me, I identified every genetic risk factor for every major disease known to man, which would have resulted in new cures for ailments from addiction to Alzheimer's if my research hadn't been covered up by the surprisingly powerful Big Casket industry. Oh well. We rung in the new year an hour before you did.

Estrus on my trigger finger

2009-11-10T18:58:00.013-05:00

Just got home from deer camp 2009, lugging a 48.5 lb, non-wheeled cooler up the stairs to our house with pretty much my last strength. My guess would be I'd carried it about 100 rods over the course of my multiple-shuttle-and-subway-transfer return to Boston. This expenditure of energy didn't include the initial dragging of my own (not hard) and my dad's (moderately hard as draggings go, very hard as two guys lifting on top of SUVs go) deer. We then scun and butchered two of them, which requires a non-trivial amount of labor to get cooler worthy hunks. I learned a thing or two about flying with deer last year; it's a long story involving multiple trips through security and a fair amount of bloody water on the ground. This year I weighed it, saving me 50$ by keeping it under 50 lbs, and sealed the meat up better, avoiding bio-hazards and the stress of watching your cooler sit on end out on the tarmac waiting for one more drip to keep it off your plane. As I watched this years cooler being loaded onto the plane in Milwaukee, a fly buzzing around my blood and fat encrusted shoes, I thought, "Sherva, you've got it made."

Deer camp itself was awesome. We got four deer between Mark, deer camp mainstay Tom Stoltz, my dad and myself. My deer was a pretty small doe, no spots, totally counted as a deer. My dad got a nice eight pointer. My brother's first deer was a trophy buck, 10 points. The first deer he knew he got was a nice doe. At lunch, he mentioned seeing a big buck right away in the morning but didn't say he'd shot, too embarrassed to say he'd missed. Several hours and 6 shots later, on the way out to drag his doe back to camp, they randomly came across a huge dead buck. Mark then fessed up to shooting the deer early that morning...in the face. He'd looked for blood but only found some hair since the bullet lodged in the body cavity, leaving no outlet for the red stuff. Uncle Dale, Jon, and Eddy and crew came and visited, but we didn't see Mark much that night because he was always checking his facebuck.

In the cold, hard terms of meat ascertainment, venison $9.89 per pound.

Expenditures: 369$
One round trip flight to Minneapolis: 178$.
One out of state hunting license: 141$.
Whiskey: 30$ (debatable whether that expense would have happened sans deer camp).
Checking one blood-tight cooler: 20$ (see note about whiskey).

Muscle: "Approximately" 37.3 lbs of boned, de-fatted venison
The cooler also contained 5 lbs of chokecherry and lingonberry jellies and syrup (a number that was the result of 4 of 6 trials I did subtracting my own weight from that of our combined), two lbs wild rice (according to the packages), 2.2 lbs of frozen water bottles (looked up on internet and not converted frozen water weight to approximately account for the weight of the bottles themselves and the large plastic bag the venison was sealed in) and the cooler itself (lets just call it 2 lbs, I'm not pulling the deer meat out of there and weigh the cooler).

Maintaining a family tradition I've attended since I was 13 except for that year I was in China: 400$
You gotta have limits; if the cost of the trip would have been $31 more I would have stayed home and bought 80 lobsters or...wow, mail order Waygu beef is expensive, like $215 for four 10 oz ribeyes. Now that's a lot of money for meat. I'll get my own. Suckers.

In summary, hunting, processing, and transporting your own meat is a physically demanding yet rewarding experience. Probably a lot like childbirth.

One Year Down

2009-10-27T16:11:00.014-04:00

Well, we've lived in Boston for a year now, a milestone we celebrated by drinking the bottle of champagne the realtor left us when we moved in with some oysters. Bet you didn't know we had oysters living with us. They keep to their beds for the most part. We were both somewhat surprised by how similar living here has been to the other cities we've lived in. Certain things (seafood, general quality of pizza) are mildly better; others (driving, Massholes) are slightly worse, but I sort of think there are more similarities than differences to living in larger U.S. cities--at least in Mpls, STL, and Boston.

We do sometimes use wicked as an adjective to modify other adjectives, which is still a conscious decision done for the the novelty. For now. I can also affect a slight Boston accent when I want to fit in with the Massholes. I guess that's about the only way we've become Bostony, Liz was a honker when we moved. I also get angry at and think bad thoughts about people who do inconsiderate things while I'm biking, but it's still the inwardly directed, Minnesotany kind of anger that simmers more than it yells swears at strangers. My co-worker who moved from IA says he likes the east coast abrasiveness because you know immediately who the assholes are; in the midwest it can take years to find that out.

We got visited several times, which was nice. My dad (2x), Liz's mom and Mitch, Liz's cousin (2x), Liz's sister (Kris), Liz's aunt and uncle, Missy and Rob from NYC, our Alabama friends, Greg, and Craig (last night) have all made appearances. Come on out, it gives us an excuse to eat lobster.

On the MN front last year, we made it back a few times and saw our last game in the Dome, where Liz had her last Dome Dog. We always wish we could be there more.

I've found that if I just pretend the Twins making the playoffs is like them winning the world series, it helps. Their runs have been just as exciting as any world series game and it softens the recovery time after a bad playoff performance.

Oh, and of course we were thrice blessed with nepheeci last year. It turns out there's not a collective word like "siblings" for nieces and nephews, so I invented one.

Pretty decent year, all told.

Tasting Mother Nature's Booty

2009-10-12T20:28:00.004-04:00

One of the things we were most excited about home ownership was finally being able to grow some edibles. We tried beets, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, peas, herbs, and cucumbers. Our results were mixed. The peas and cucumbers died within weeks of transplanting them outside. The zucchini flowered but never zucchinied. One beet survived in a pot. I grated the little guy over a salad. It was enough to turn the dressing pink. The peppers did OK, I think we got about five off of three plants. The greenies went into a salsa and the reds went into a shrimp and spinach and brown rice concoction. The cherry tomatoes were a big success, we ate them by the handful and had plenty for salsa.

we inherited an apple tree in the back yard as well. The squirrels got most of them but we had enough for Liz to make a crisp for us and one for the neighbors.

The mint garnish came from the garden as well. The rest of the basil and thyme went into pesto. Some made its way onto this salmon and we froze a nice batch as well.

I do not believe our farm was cost effective compared to what we'd have paid at the grocery store, after buying all the planters and soil we'll probably break even around 2012 if we keep at it. It was fairly fun either way and we were proud of our meager yet tasty harvest.

The Phantom

2009-09-27T12:12:00.004-04:00

Do you love the state fair but hate children and the sound of their laughter? Think agricultural equipment is unworthy of looking at? Believe quilting and jam making should be simply appreciated and that to judge them cheapens their respective art forms? Think butter is for eating and not sculpting? Hate rides that spin? Think adults who walk around with giant stuffed animals are idiots? If you answered yes to more than three of these questions, you may not in fact be a fan of the fair and simply like overeating. If this is the case, man, does Boston have the thing for you. The Phantom Gourmet is a local TV show where a guy goes around to New England restaurants and tells you what's good. It's food porn at its finest, and every year the show hosts the Phantom Food Festival outside Fenway featuring the best of the best dishes from his favorite eateries. So get this--40 bucks gets you in the door and it's all you can eat from there. Yesterday, the neighbors Chris and Mandy and I went there to do battle against crowds and moderation.

I hesitate to even post this since we strive for truthfulness on this blog and I'd hate to have people start accusing me of exaggeration, but here is an alphabetized list of the things I ate:

Ahi Tuna (pictured below)
Arancini
Beer (Budweiser, born on May 9th. Unacceptable.)
Beer (Michelob)
Beer Cookie (don't ask, it was full of fennel and disgusting)
Calamari (sauced in the buffalo style)
Cheesesteak
Chicken pot pie
Chicken wing (Asian, pictured)
Chili
Chowder (clam)
Clam (drunken, possibly the best thing I ate although it's tough to say for sure)
Conch fritter (pictured)
Cupcake (Kick Ass brand)
Fries (French)
Hoagie (Italian)
Hot dog (with bacon, cheese, and BBQ sauce)
Ice cream (coffee and oreo)
Meatball (regular)
Meatball (veal)
Mess, the (a disappointing pasta dish)
Peanut butter cup
Pickle (spicy)
Pizza (two (2) slices from different pizzerias)
Pop (blueberry)
Rib (BBQ)
Ricotta Gnocchi
Root beer
Sherbet (rainbow)
Steak tip
Sushi
Taco (mini)
Truffle (had some fruit B.S. in the middle instead of chocolate, I nearly spit it in the woman's face)
Whoopie pie (smuggled home in Mandy's purse and eaten post-nap)

That is all. I'm not one to use the term hero lightly, but I ate heroically. After Liz got off work, we reconvened with the neighbors for some much needed exercise in the form of bowling. And nachos, we had nachos. My first Massachusetts bowling score was a respectable 123, Liz's a paltry 130.

Acadia (North Shore East)

2009-09-10T08:05:00.016-04:00

Over labor day, the wife and I threw the tent, a rasher of bacon, and a length of stout rope into the car and drove up to Bar Harbor, Maine, the location of Acadia National Park. The scenery on the drive up was straight out of northern MN, a mixture of pine and birch forests. When we got to the park, we were immediately struck by how much it resembled the North Shore's rocky islands. You'd have to taste the water to tell that it was ocean instead of Superior. The ocean was dotted every 20 yards or so with markers for lobster pots, which make lobsters:

When they wash up on shore they make good tripods:

The scurrying rocks were not very challenging. The mountains were a bit higher than in MN, with Cadillac mountain being the highest. Here's us at the top:

One day we rented bikes to take out on the park's extensive system of carriage roads, built for horse drawn carriages by John D. Rockefeller('s money) in the early 1900's. It was about as nice a bike ride as you could want:

There's a very old restaurant in the park that is famous for their popovers. We stopped and had a few while we looked at these boob hills.

We did not see any moose, which is probably for the best since the language barrier between us, who only speak the MN dialect, and the locals might have resulted in a diplomatic, even life threatening disaster, as anyone familiar with how similar "It is an honor for us to visit your lands," and "The ticks on your mother are thick and engorged and smell of alewives," are in the moose language family, along with the moose's propensity towards goring, knows.

In summary, Acadia is nice, but if you want the same scenery without the cost of a flight, go to Tettegouche. Also, here is a carving of an Indian with a ladder in his nose:

The Neighbors

2009-08-20T12:36:00.006-04:00

We've now spent many evenings sitting out in the back yard chatting with the neighbors, Roslindale natives Paul and Dierdre. They are super nice, fun people and we hit it off right away. So, as an enjoyer of food and the preparation thereof, I started asking about the things they like to eat so that I might one day wow them with an elegant yet casual dinner spread. Since our grills our 30 feet apart, I often see them cooking dinner. The only things I've seen them grill, however, are steaks, burgers, hot dogs, and boneless skinless chicken breasts, leaving me little to go on. During my initial inquiries, we established that Dierdre does not eat anything that has ever spent any portion of its life in water.

Lobsters? "God No."
Fried fish? "No sir."
Shrimp? "Eww."
Salmon? "I'll eat fish sticks but I don't really like 'em."

OK, so seafood's not their thing. Would you ever try venison? "Not in a million years." Her eating habits have since turned into a kind of running joke, where I talk about the stranger things I eat/have eaten and ask her if she likes them. The answer, invariably, is no. I had the queen mother of these exchanges with her yesterday evening. It started when Paul was saying how Dierdre sends him to work with treats for the mechanics in the auto shop he manages.

"Today I sent watermelon, I also do a lot of bacon."
"Wait, you send him to work with a pile of fried bacon?"
"No, bacon, the Boston way of saying baking."
"Oh, that makes more sense, but you could make a great salad out of watermelon, bacon, and some cheese."
"What kind of cheese?"
"Oh, goat or feta are the most common."
"I hate both of those."
"What kind of cheese do you like?"
"American."
"That's it?"
"Sometimes cheddar."
"Those are about the only two cheeses that would not be good in a bacon/watermelon salad. What about mozzarella?"
"I like mozzarella, but only melted on pizza, I wouldn't eat a big hunk of fresh mozzarella."
"Do you like blue cheese?"
"Hate it."
"Then what do you dip your chicken wings in ?!"
"I don't eat chicken wings."

Wild Weekend

2009-08-10T12:34:00.005-04:00

Liz took the bus down to NYC to go to our friend Missy's bachelorette party on Saturday morning so I had a whole day and night to myself. I was pretty worried about her but tried to have some fun on my own. The list of things I was worried about included:

A group of unaccompanied females is an attractive target for Middle Eastern terrorists, New Jersey guidos.

Swine flu from contaminated penis straws.

Jeter and A-Rod confusing Liz for a man and stealing her away from me with their smug, soulless charms.

News, and the commencement of its dissemination.

Although somewhat paralyzed by worry, I attempted to soldier on and make some use of the day. After I dropped Liz off, I made myself a man sized breakfast of home fries, eggs, bacon, and Smuttynose IPA. I then played some golf, came home, and ate a dozen oysters with a G&T. Just when my night of bachelorhood was about to get really crazy, I sat down on the couch to watch the Twins, watched about 1.5 innings, then fell alseep and woke up around midnight. It was probably for the best since my coworker and I had plans to run a ~9 mile stretch of this trail that follows Boston harbor early the next day. It was a nice little weekend.

Weekend

2009-07-27T10:29:00.006-04:00

Had a nice little weekend here. We played a game of poker on Friday night, a tournament for a new ipod touch my coworker got free with the purchase of a Mac. Liz exited early, leaving me to match wits with the field. It came down to me and a relatively inexperienced player who had a substantial chip lead after knocking out the last few players on a single hand. I went all in on an open ended straight draw after the flop which included an ace. I figured she didn't have an ace and would think I did, but like an idiot, she called me, winning the tournament on a jack high. She was pumped and I'm glad she won.

Saturday we checked a new state off our list--Rhode Island, America's Tattoo...

not...

We took our bikes and did a nice ride on a path along Narragansett Bay. It was nice, lots of tidal marshes and some rocky islands. Providence seemed nice and even had a brew pub. We had some wings whose superbly crafted sauce almost overcame the slightly overdone nature of the meat itself. All in all they were highly noshable but hardly life changing. The beer selection was not large, maybe 5 brews available. I had their imperial IPA which was nice and hoppy but served out of a cask. Its temperature was not ideal for post-bike ride refreshment. Liz's spicy blond ale was better. Here's a picture of Providence's skyline that I stole off the internet.

Do You See A Trend

2009-07-23T15:01:00.005-04:00

As I type up this blog I am realizing that most everything I blog about has before and after pictures. I blame it on HGTV, What Not To Wear, and all those other shows that are about taking something and fixing it up. Well, if you like those shows and my posts, you'll like this post.

Every week I am amazed at our yard and garden. It really is beautiful. I have to give the previous homeowners props on all the perennials and how everything is scheduled to come up and bloom at different times.

Here is a pic from our front garden in March:

Our garden just a couple days ago:

The New Do

2009-07-23T14:50:00.005-04:00

Liz - Before Cut

Liz - After Cut

Wow! I was a ghost before I went to the beach on Sunday. I'm glad that it looks like I have a nice tan in the photo (in real life it's more of a burn).

Bathroom Re-do

2009-07-23T14:25:00.009-04:00

As many of you know, the previous owners of our house loved red and shades of red. One of the last rooms in our house screaming for me to cover up its embarrassing shade of pastel pink paint was our upstairs bathroom. I thought this would be an easy task, boy was I wrong...painting cabinets is not as easy as you would think. I started the project with less than a week before our friends Erin and Jon were scheduled to arrive. The night before their arrival the cabinets were still a bit tacky and I had Rick feverishly putting on new hinges and knobs. Everything looked great until we tried to close the cabinet doors. Turns out I may have put a little too much primer and paint on the insides of the doors and the cabinet base. Good thing we've got some tools. I took the wood plane (that's right, this was a job for a plane not some wimpy sand paper) and got rid of the cabinet I felt we no longer had a need for. So when you come to visit, don't snoop in our bathroom cabinets, they are not as pretty on the inside as the outside.

Upstairs Bathroom
Before

After

Fun Food Facts

2009-07-23T10:01:00.002-04:00

We made baba ghanoush last night. It's pretty much pureed roasted eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, olives, and garlic in which we dipped toasted pitas. We enjoyed it; please don't tell homeland security. We had it with pork so we should be fine. The pork was infadelicious! Crap, the pork was spiced in a middle eastern fashion so maybe that cancels out the porkiness. But wait, we had wine with it too so we're probably not in imminent danger of landing in Guantanamo Bay.

And now for the fun fact--the molecule that makes us taste mint and the one that makes us taste black licorice are identical except they are mirror images (stereoisomers) of each other. Everyone knows this. What most people don't know is that due to this fact, if a left handed person drank a Jaegermeister mojito they would die instantly. The exact scientific reason for this is not easily explainable to the layperson, but it has to do with the way lefthanded people's deviant, twisted brains are wired to their tastebuds...which have horns. The same thing would happen to a right handed person in the southern hemisphere, of course. The good news is that anyone can enjoy a refreshing Jag mojito while standing on their head. The more you know.

Return of the Coons

2009-07-17T09:27:00.002-04:00

After our friends left, lobster shells were plentiful in our uncovered garbage can. Thus, Monday and Tuesday nights saw the return of the marauding pack of raccoons (Procyon lotor, the rabid, chattering scavengers of the urban wilderness) who visit our backyard periodically. The first night I believe they were just scouting and creating caches of food for later consumption. We watched them out our window with a Mag Lite. The next night, our beam revealed a flurry of masked glowing eyes and pink lobster carcasses. As Liz was transfixed on the feeding frenzy, Phoebe the cat suddenly jumped up on the windowsill in front of her face, giving her a hilariously bad fright. I told her I could solve our neighborhood's coon problem once and for all if she let me get a sweet air rifle (with an infrared scope, of course); the catch being we have to eat any and all coons killed, possibly in some sort of unholy stew. Liz reasoned that garbage eating city coons should probably not be eaten, unlike the clean rural coons sold for consumption at the St. Louis farmers market. I reasoned that these coons eat lobster. We never decided for sure, but I think the coons will be left to their scurrying. For now. The last few nights have been peaceful, but they'll be back. They always come back.

We played softball last night on the neighbors' team. I'd sort of forgotten how much I loved playing. The team is terrible (winless until Liz and I joined) so there's zero pressure to perform. Which makes it doubly awesome to see their surprise when you make a running catch, take an extra base on a lazy throw back to the infield, back up an off target throw or a missed play in the outfield, or even just slide into a base. We lost last night 17-8, through no fault of Liz or I. It was a ridiculously fun game. While we were waiting to play, there was an altercation in the parking lot which culminated in someone attempting to run down another person with their car. The nearly hit person then threw a bat at the fleeing Jeep, landing a solid shot. I was on the lookout for a retaliatory drive by during our game.

And finally, Liz continued her "transformation" into a no-nonsense-east coast-in-your-face-type person on Monday as she once again berated unsupervised children, this time for messing with the treadmills in our community center. I was proud and only slightly embarrassed.

Good Friends, Loose Lips, Tall Ships, and Attitude

2009-07-14T20:38:00.009-04:00

Erin and Jon, our good friends from Alabama, St. Louis, and now Alabama again were in town last weekend. They brought do rags for us and a lady bug do rag for Phoebe, which she was ecstatic about.

We first took them to the Barking Crab, a restaurant we'd seen on the TV show Man vs. Food. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised that the food sucked at a place we heard about on a program where the point is to conquer the food rather than enjoy it, but it was an overpriced tourist trap featuring eight dollar "bowls" of clam chowder containing exactly two clams, soggy crab cakes, fish and chips where all the breading falls off after the first bite, bland fried shrimp, decent fried scallops and calamari and chips, and sticky communal picnic tables. Neither man nor food won this contest, one got grease induced gut rot and the other got unceremoniously turned into excrement. Liz did yell at some bratty kid with inattentive parents for sticking his grubby little brat hands in the communal silverware bucket. Tres Bostony.

The weekend picked up from there since it almost had to. We looked at some Tall Ships and then hit the North End for some Italian dessert and coffee, then took them to the oldest continually operating pub in North America. It's called the Bell in Hand and it's not all that cool. More of a "so you can say you did" type of thing. Then we went home and were in bed by, oh, let's just say 10:45.

The next day we forced them to walk part of the freedom trail, just so they could say they did. We're very particular about people actually doing the things they say they did. Then we went to a place called Eastern Standard near Fenway where we had awesome oysters, probably the best salad I've ever had (poached egg and lardons over frisee) and a tongue sandwich. A cow's tongue, not my own tongue disguised with a bun and mustard like in cartoons. After that, we saw the Red Sox play the Royals.

The Sox won one to nothing, which makes for a pretty boring game when you don't have a horse or a Twin in the race, Big Poppi notwithstanding. Then we came home and allowed ourselves to stay up until, oh let's say 11:30.

Saturday we decided leaving the house was a horrible idea so we had an all day tasting menu. We started with Liz's famous buttermilk waffles, moved on to watermelon, goat cheese, arugula, and sesame salads, then fried manchego pucks with spicy honey, then scallop and tuna ceviche, and finally venison gorganzola juicy lucy sliders. Liz, who is currently sitting behind me studying vocab for the GRE, says it was ambrosial and metamorphosed our appetence into satiation.

Then we put on do rags and hung out with the neighbors until, oh probably about midnight. We were feeling saucy. Sunday, we ate some lobsters and put them on a plane back to AL. Pretty nice weekend, all things considered.

More STL pics (not taken with cheap cell phone)

2009-07-01T10:00:00.004-04:00

Return to St. Louis

2009-06-29T19:48:00.006-04:00

We made our first return trip to St. Louis since we left in October last weekend. We met the Twins and several other less famous Minnesotans, St. Louisians, Chicagoans, and Omahanians there. We packed a lot into a weekend and returned to many of our old haunts, including The Stable, which has some seriously good pizza and obscure beer, Rooster, which has some seriously good crepes, Busch stadium, which has a seriously good first baseman, Sage, which has good stuff in general, Square One Brewery and Distillery, enough said, and the Hennies' back yard, which has seriously good people.

The game itself was less than ideal. As another more famous St. Louisian once said "It's getting hot in herre," as in upper 90s hot. We were in the shade which made it bearable. Albert Pujols put on a show, pretty much single handedly beating the Twins. Our boys won the other two games of the series, which made it OK. Here's us trying not to melt.

In contrast, here's one of the last games we went to in Kansas City last April. It was below freezing. The picture is blurry because light travels differently through extremely cold air. Look it up. Anyways, neither temperature extreme is conducive to beer consumption.

We got a sweet deal on rooms at the Four Seasons, so we hung out a bit at the rooftop pool to cool down. Later, a thunderstorm rolled through and we watched lightning blaze across the sky over the arch. That was neat.

On the plane ride home we sat in front of a mom with two boys, aged approximately seven and ten. We overheard this conversation as the mom attempted to keep them busy with Mad Libs:

Mom: I need an adjective.
Younger Kid: What's an adjective again?
Mom: A describing word like silly or hairy.
Younger Kid: Toilety!

Two hours later, literally 50 feet off the ground and 500 yards from the runway, Older Kid barfed all over himself. Younger Kid: "Look mom, it's his nachos." It smelled very stomachy.

Gardening...

2009-06-14T12:34:00.006-04:00

The people who owned our house before us did a wonderful job with the landscaping. It's quite the task to keep up with all the weeding and pruning. We had to purchase a hedge trimmer a few weeks ago to keep the massive boxwood hedge looking nice and boxy.

We've got two of the tree/bushes pictured below in our backyard. They are prickly and catch every dead leaf in our yard. Does anyone know what these are?

Here is a close up of one of the branches.

Crazy Friday Night

2009-06-12T21:12:00.007-04:00

Our Pizza

Phoebe's Turn

My Turn

Your Oaf

In Other Stryper News...

2009-06-03T15:59:00.002-04:00

Congratulations...

Greylock

2009-05-24T16:42:00.025-04:00

Greylock. The very name inspires awe and wonderment. Towering above Massachusetts at a height of 3,491 feet, Mount Greylock, the highest point in the Bay State has beckoned the intrepidest of the intrepid to attempt scaling its lofty heights for eons. Many have tried. Most have succeeded.

We left the oxygen-rich safety of Boston early on the morning of Saturday, May 23nd. We bid farewell to Phoebe, the cat. Knowing that we might never return, we left an extra dish of food out. We drove west on the Mass turnpike, using those precious three hours to produce the extra red blood cells we would need for the travails ahead. We took the Corolla as far as it could take us, loaded our meager provisions into backpacks, and began the arduous 1.5 mile trek to base camp.

It was nice, they had toilets, water, and free firewood. We pitched camp.

We then took another equally arduous hike to Stony Ledge, elev. 2560 ft., from which we got our first glimpse of the imposing figure of Greylock. Intimidating to the extreme, we searched our souls for the strength we'd need to drag our fragile bodies up its sheer, jagged face.

Then we went to a pretty waterfall.

The trek back down was quiet and introspective, the trials tomorrow would bring looming heavily on our minds. But tomorrow would come soon enough. We pushed thoughts of our fragile mortality aside, for tonight we would have s'mores made with Peeps. Yummy.

Dawn broke early after a surprisingly restful night of sleep. Zero hour. Time to test our mettle against Greylock's cold, dizzying heights. The ascent began smoothly enough. Suddenly, at about 3,300 feet, our Sherpa was stricken with high altitude cerebral edema and went mad, babbling incoherently about Transformers and having to get back to his scout troupe. Or was it cerebral eczema? It's impossible to say since my oxygen deprived brain could only recall the most rudimentary of medical terminology such as "Charley horse" and "Wiener." In any event, having no oxygen canisters with which to save his life, we did the only humane thing and ran him through with his pocket knife. After pinning a note of explanation to his neckerchief, we somberly pushed on to the summit where we ate Nature Valley Sweet and Salty granola bars with almonds, Laughing Cow pasteurized cheese spread, and Triscuits (original recipe). It's what our brave, fallen Sherpa, Steven K., would have wanted. Atop the summit, past the parking lot and near the interpretive center, we saw another cruel site. A stone obelisk, presumably hewn from the virgin rock by the gods themselves would need to be scaled if we truly wanted to say we'd been to the highest point in the state.

Drawing on reserves of strength I didn't know I had, I climbed the stairs to the top of the tower. Alas, mist obscured views of the Green Mountains of New Hampshire, Albany, NY, and the entire Tibetan plateau. Exhausted, humbled, but triumphant, we descended from the death zone and bid farewell to Mount Gaycock, as it's known in the language of Steven K's. people. We returned to Boston damp but elated. Then we had pizza. You know who loved Pizza? Steven K.

Steven K.

1998-2009

Friend, Sherpa, Pizza Lover

Liz here. Thank you Rick for the rich description of our travels to the Berkshires. Yes, we indeed traveled to Mount Greylock State Park in the Berkshires for a couple days of hiking and camping. My number one goal of the whole trip was not to summit Mount Greylock, but to slowly roast my Easter Peeps (that's right, my mom still sends me an Easter basket) over some red hot coals. I had heard that the outer layer of granulated suger crisps up really nice. An important side note about s'mores, I learned many years ago from Rick's mom to use canned chocolate frosting instead of a Hershey's bar, one of the best pieces of cooking/baking advice I've ever gotten. Needless to say, the peep s'mores (which I deemed s'meeps) were delish!

Phoebe was over joyed upon our return home. We had left her a small pile of catnip on a plate in the kitchen. When we got home the plate was at the other end of the kitchen and the catnip was strewn everywhere, seems that someone got a little crazy while her parents were out of town.

Bands

2009-05-21T09:30:00.002-04:00

We went to the Shins last night at The Orpheum (Boston has one too). It was sorta OK. I hate it when bands play live and change every song to the point where it's barely recognizable as the version on the album. The Counting Crows were the worst example of this I've ever heard. But on the flipside, I like to know I'm hearing a live performance. You could have gotten last night's Orpheum Shins experience by sitting in a hot, musty smelling room, closing your eyes, and putting the Shins section of your ipod on random on an average to slightly above average sound system. You would also need an girl/woman with a huge pony tail to squeeze into the row in front of you where she didn't have an assigned seat and swing her head back and forth as she simultaneously danced and talked to her friend, making your field of vision oscillate between stage and ponytail in an annoying hair strobe effect. Oh wait, I said your eyes would have to be be shut so actually you wouldn't need that girl. Nobody needs that girl. Hearing the whole crowd Ooooooh ooh Ooooooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh Oooooh along with the opening to New Slang was pretty cool.

Speaking of bands, I saw Stryper on TV for some reason the other day. I was thinking how Stryper is a perfect name for the first (only?) Christian hair metal band. I can picture their first band meeting...

First order of business, we need a name for the first ever Christian hair metal band. Something forceful. Something that invokes action while remaining totally innocuous and inoffensive.

How about Striper spelled with a "y"?

Perfect! It'll make people think of candy stripers, and volunteering to help the sick is totally in line with the band's message. And the "y" gives the whole thing a meaningless edginess. Side benefit: it gives us a built in theme for our spandex jumpsuits. Meeting adjourned. Brad, get to work on those jumpsuits. Kenny, break out the fruit punch and lemon bars. Gentlemen, we are gonna be so famous.

To learn more about Stryper, including the real story of how the band got its name, go to Wikipedia.

Dogzilla

2009-05-13T10:11:00.009-04:00

I passed another milestone of true Bostonianality yesterday. I ate "the best" "hot dog" in "the world" from Speed's Hot Dogs. I say "the best" because it wasn't, "hot dog" because it was more like three hot dogs, and "the world" because it was purchased from a kiosk in a wholesale food service industrial park and furthermore, "the world" may just be, like, all in our heads man. First, the positives. The dog was massive. We're talking jumbo dome dog size if not larger. Here is a picture of said dog.

It's hard to tell the scale of that thing without a frame of reference so I've included a picture of common object by which to compare its TMJ-inducing girth and Ronjeremsonian length.

Second, it was perfectly cooked. Speed (not his real name) simmers them in a solution of apple cider and brown sugar all morning, then grills them until they caramelize and split when you order them. In addition to crisping up the skin, the splitting allows your mouth to divide and conquer since very few human beings could get their mouth around the whole thing, none of whom work in the wholesale food industry.

Now, on to the minuses. First, no kraut, which is strike one and two in my wienerverse. I originally ordered it with only mustard and onions but was talked into getting it "loaded" by the coworker who took me there. Loaded, I discovered, basically meant loaded with sugar. The extra toppings included a sweet BBQ sauce, sweet relish, and a chili whose sweetness could not be independently determined due to it's intermingling with said BBQ sauce. The toppings, combined with the sweet, caramelized exterior produced by its sugar/cider bath, produced a cloying (gmail word of the day a few weeks ago) sugar bomb. Even the onions were described as "The sweetest anywhere." If you want to get the Speed's experience without coming to Boston, take three regular sized hot dogs, cram them all into a nicely grilled french roll, and then dump a half a cup of honey and half a cup of molasses over the whole hot mess. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a big fan of mixing my sweets and my savories, I hate kettle corn, sweet and sour sauce, and sloppy joes. But this was just excessive. After a few bites I went back up to the counter to grab the bottle of Frank's hot sauce in order to get some other areas of my tongue involved in the party. Speed stopped me and told me that "Dirty Dick's" hot sauce was much better. I took his advice, dumped on a healthy amount, and took a bite. Somehow the sweetness factor was #$%@* increased! Then I looked at the bottle and saw that it was a Caribbean inspired, fruit-based hot sauce with brown sugar and bananas as primary ingredients. Speed, you diabetic SOB, I'm sorry but I think your true calling was in the pastry business. Will I go back? Yes. Will I order a dog with anything but onions, mustard, and Frank's? No. Will I bring my own kraut? Possibly.

Our cat would never lower herself to trifle with base meat products such as hot dogs, instead using her hypnotic eye lasers to compel weak minded humans into feeding her fresh Maine lobster.

Oh, and happy 32nd birthday to Liz. And happy zeroeth birthday (two days ago) to Nathan Tsatsos. I will practice my avuncular pull-my-finger joke delivery so it's ready to go when he is.

Friends in High Places

2009-04-29T11:51:00.018-04:00

My dad and Laurel were out last week, giving us a reason to knock a few more things off our Boston to-do list. We went to the top of the Prudential Center (on the left) which afforded nice views of the surrounding area. You can see Cape Cod on a clear day, according to the wise-cracking guy with the thick Boston accent on the audio tour. I'm not sure if the dark smudge I saw on the horizon was the cape or my imagination, but since nobody can prove different I'm going with cape.
Since it was Patriots Day, the totally necessary vacation day Bostoners get to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concorde, we headed out to Concorde and saw the bridge where our ancestors finally stood up to the king's minions and said "No More." The insurgents were stockpiling cannons and guns at some guy's farm out there so the Redcoats went out there to confiscate them. Our boys got wind of it and were waiting for them, trading a few volleys of musket balls and then chasing them all the way back to the city. Then everyone was all like "Oh, it is so on." So they went under cover of darkness and set up some defenses on this hill next to Bunker Hill and the British were all like "Tsk Tsk, poor form, can't have that now, up the hill chaps...we'll be home in time for tea" And the Americans we're all like, "Oh no they didn't, are those eye whites? Pew! Pew! Pew! Ack-Ack-Ack!" Although our guys were ultimately routed after they ran out of ammo, they did some major damage, killing 50% of all the British officers who died during the whole war in that single battle. The British officers were all like "Ooh dear me, I fear these bright red coats and fancy hats are attracting sniper fire," and the colonials were all like, "Ha ha, we didn't even want that hill," and retreated via zip line to Cheers, where they shared a well deserved Sam Adams, Samuel Adams having been the premier man whore comfort boy of the day.

Later, we walked up 294 steps to the top of the obelisk and were treated to this view:

Someone also hauled the sister cannon to the one the Britts were after in Concorde to the top. It was apparently designed to shoot around corners. Liz could barely contain her excitement over having walked up 294 stairs.

Our Twins didn't fare much better in their two-part battle against today's Boston residents, although good times were had by all in attendance despite some early rain and the fact that licking the green monster would probably have tasted better than Fenway's hot dogs and nachos.

Graft Update

2009-04-15T09:11:00.002-04:00

It became clear last week why the grad student felt he needed to grease the academic wheels with things remembered. The kid did his coursework here in Boston, but returned to his home in Houston to work on his thesis. On Tuesday, he sent me the first and only draft of his paper that I'd seen with sincerest apologies for the time I was taking to be his reader. Aware that his deadline was Friday, I asked him how soon he needed my revisions. He ignored that question and informed me that his final draft was in the mail, arriving here Thursday, and would it not be too much trouble for me to drop it off at the registrar for him. So he was essentially asking me to sign off on his project no questions asked. The best part was his resume was attached to the paper which stated that he possessed "excellent time management skills." It also said he was a concert flautist and had experience analyzing semen but who am I to judge. My boss told me he'd probably deny the kid graduation, but also said that most kids in this program do a library thesis, essentially a report, whereas this kid had done actual genetic sequencing lab work. Also, he'd have to pay another semester of student fees and his other committee member, a genetic epidemiologist whose stature in the field dwarfs mine, had already signed off on it. So I told him he'd basically shown bad form but I'd sign anyways. I went to the registrar to drop off his stuff, the women there took a look at the name on the envelope and said, "Oh, this kid isn't graduating because he failed physiology last semester." "Did he know that," I asked? "Yes."

As my boss succinctly put it, "What a dumbass." Turns out the program he was in is a basically a masters program for people who need a little extra ammo in order to get into med school. So who knows how many lives were potentially saved.

I saw a guy biking today with a homemade scrolling, flashing LED sign on his back saying "See Me." He was heading towards MIT.

Last Few Weeks

2009-04-07T10:49:00.012-04:00

It's been a while since we updated and for that, to the seven or so people who read this, I apologize. It's not that we haven't been doing anything interesting, just not anything particularly interesting to people who do not happen to be us, which most of you are not. So, starting back and working forwards, we had our MN peeps over for Sunday dinner a few Sundays ago. They brought their 1.5 year old over for some crab risotto and cupcakes. The last time we'd seen him he was wearing a spider costume and begging for candy in laughably poor English. His grammar and diction have improved considerably since Oct. We were especially impressed with his ability to differentiate between his height-disparate moms. To their chagrin and the delight of everybody but the hardest of the hard hearted social conservatives, he calls the taller mommy "Big Mama" and the shorter mommy "Baby Mama." It's doubly funny since Baby Mama is also the biological Mama so Big Mama also calls her baby mama Baby Mama. The cupcakes were universally lauded.

I sit in on a meeting for an Alzheimer's disease grant being submitted by some higher ups my department. My coworker and I are not directly involved in the grant, but the boss likes us to sit in since we will probably be involved with it at some point down the road. Since we don't have any explicit responsibilities at this point, we usually sit there and crack wise about aspects of the research and a certain eccentric member of the grant team. To wit, I have a love hate relationship with zombies. I hate them because I generally have about 3-4 nightmares a year in which I am being chased by them. I'm sure a second year psychoanalysis student could tell me what that means about by deepest darkest fears but I probably wouldn't want to know. On the other hand, I love zombies because they are awesome and it is fun to discuss strategy for surviving the coming zombie apocalypse with others who know the mythology. Anyways, back to the grant committee--part of the project involves obtaining brain samples from people who died of Alzheimer's disease from the Boston University Brain Bank. It's like a sperm bank but for brains. My coworker and fellow zombie enthusiast and I discussed whether a very enterprising zombie might have the mental capacity to climb the ranks of academia with its zombieness undetected and eventually land the holy grail zombie jobs--brain bank curator. I mean, the usual zombie M.O. for brain acquisition is to just lumber about in a large group and overwhelm victims with sheer numbers. Surely at least one zombie from the right tail of the zombie intelligence bell curve might have thought:

"What am I doing? I wander around 24-7 with all these other decaying shlubs, attracting the attention of the shotgun wielding living and for what?! MAYBE one bite of brains if I'm lucky enough to be one of the first on the scene of a fresh kill? F-that, I'm gonna enroll in night school and get my degree in neurology. Five years, I'll be swimming in brains."

Flash forward five years...
Boss: "Johnson, where are those new samples? You said you'd have them cataloged by Tuesday!"
Johnson, wiping mouth: "New samples?"

The issue also arose as to whether the available brains were frozen or preserved in formalin. This begged the question as to whether a zombie brain bank worker would have a preference. Most zombies probably wouldn't care, but remember that this zombie is the smartest and presumably most sophisticated zombie in the world and might be a true connoisseur of brains. "Ah yes, 70, no wait, 71 year old female...above average intelligence...and I'm getting just a hint of vascular dementia on the finish." Then we realized it was a pointless discussion since zombies only crave the flesh of the living.

I also was given what I believe to be my first bribe from a master's student whose thesis I'm grading.
It is from Things Remembered.

We went to the Museum of Fine Art last Saturday. The art was considerably better then the art in the Museum of Bad Art we visited earlier. Paintings of chubby naked 18th century broads abounded.

Which brings us to last night, it wasn't exactly like being at the dome but it wasn't exactly all that bad neither. Liz insists that I add the disclaimer that this picture was taken after a vigorous workout and there's absolutely no way she'd be caught dead, much less photographed, scarfing hot dogs and swilling beer on a Monday otherwise. If the Twins fail to win the world series I blame Morneau getting called out at first on that rocket off the pitcher's glove in the first inning of the first game of the season. Just sayin'.

Gardening and Grilling

2009-03-17T17:04:00.016-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I've had a busy couple weeks. Last week I attended the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association yearly conference. I received a scholarship to attend one day of the conference through a new organization that I just joined, New England Women in Energy and the Environment. I met tons of successful women at the group's launch and went to three great sessions of the conference. I won't bore you with the nerdy stuff that I learned, I already bored Rick! I was all pumped up after the conference. It's so great to see the advances that our region of the U.S. is making when it comes to energy efficiency and our carbon cap and trade program.

I've also taken on a few more tutoring students. Algebra 2 is kicking my butt! I forgot that word problems about gravity and trajectory using the quadratic equation are hard. My 8th grade student is reading To Kill A Mockingbird. I've been saying for years that I should really reread the book. Since I am responsible for discussing the plot and concepts of it with him, I picked up the book from the library yesterday. I've become a bit of a book junkie during my unemployment. I've even dipped my toe into a couple self-help books. Not like "I'm crazy" self-help books but "working on my career strengths" type of stuff. And a little Suze Orman, I've got to have a plan for the money I'll start raking in one of these days when I get a full time job.

We purchased a grill Tuesday night from the Sears a couple miles from our house. We were very excited to get it home and put it together as soon as possible since we had heard the weekend was going to be nice. The sales person who helped us thought it would fit in our car, mind you we drive a Toyota Corolla. Not a chance. He suggested that I come back the next day, since it was almost closing, and take the pieces out of the box and load them into the car. So Wednesday afternoon I went back to Sears. Two of the guys in the pick up area took the very large pieces out of the box. Still no chance. Arrrggg. It's a problem when you live somewhere were you don't know anyone who drives a truck or SUV. I had to go next door to Lowe's and rent one of their trucks. When I was filling out the paperwork to rent the truck, the sales associated informed me that I had to transport a Lowe's purchase in order to rent the truck. I batted a few eyelashes and he told me I could buy a bottle of water and then I technically would be transporting the water. Nice. Off to Sears where the guys loaded it onto the truck. Luckily, the neighbor and his son were home when I got to our house and they carried it up our gazzillion steps to our deck. Wonderful! I returned the truck and was thrilled I had accomplished the mission at hand. Rick was pleased that we had a grill at our house when he got home.

Here are a couple pics of us putting it together...

So we thought we were pretty smart. We left the side burner and the other side off until we moved the grill outside to install.
Saturday was sunny and beautiful outside. Rick and I picked up some steaks from Costco and accomplished purchasing a propane tank and propane. We worked in the yard a bit and the attempted to put the rest of the grill together. The instructions told us to loosen a screw, slide on the side, and then retighten the screw. Sounds easy, right? Not if the screw is completely stuck into the side of the grill. Three calls to Sears later and no one had an answer for us.
We called it a day and made our way down to the Omni Parker House for a cocktail with some of our friends who were in town. We then went to dinner at one of Rick's co-worker's who had made a traditional New England Boiled Dinner in honor of St. Patrick's Day. It was delicious! Sunday was gorgeous again, near 65. We were determined that we would grill steaks for dinner come hell or high water. I decided if we wanted to get this grill situation taken care of we had to go to Sears ourselves. They can't hang up on you or transfer you to an answering machine if you are standing right in front of them. The manager on duty was great and got us a replacement screw from a model. Rick had to get handy when we got home and drilled out the stuck screw. A few more steps in the assembly and a few broken drill bits and we were done!
We knew we were inheriting quite a few gardens with the house but we really had no clue how much was planted out there. We didn't do any yard work besides bag some leaves this past fall. We had been busy painting and unpacking. Last week we began noticing little green shoots poking through the soil and the masses of dead plants from last season. Sunday we bagged leaves and tore up old plants and pruned. Here are a couple pics of what's coming up around our yard:

Even Phoebe enjoyed the day!

We also made a new friend:

The weekend ended just as we had planned...

Eerie

2009-03-16T12:24:00.002-04:00

A potentially very strange thing happened to me when I was walking in to work last Friday. I was walking behind an oldish man on the sidewalk who was having an animated conversation with himself. I checked for Bluetooth. Negative. This in itself wasn't all that weird since I work in a hospital complex that includes a mental hospital. But it got weird after I passed him. He stopped the flow of his conversation and three times repeated something that sounded an awful lot like "Rick," which happens to be my name. I wasn't wearing my Rick jacket or Rick pants so there's no way he could have known my name. I turned off the sidewalk to enter my building before the potential implications of what I thought I heard had fully sunken in, but for the rest of the day I was kicking myself for not stopping and asking him if he was, in fact, saying my name. He was probably just saying something that sounded like Rick, or I may have missed my one opportunity to have had a magic friend. Oh well.

My dad used to tell me about how his dad used to enjoy giving away the last of his money since then he didn't have anything to worry about (freedom just being another word for nothing left to lose, etc). So on my way home, probably due to some guilt over not stopping to talk to the magic and/or crazy man earlier, I gave a panhandler my last dollar. It wasn't, strictly speaking, my last dollar on earth, but it was all I had left on my person after eating sushi for lunch. Anyways, it still felt sort of good, if for no other reason than the look on the guy's face when I told him it was my last dollar. He looked a little taken aback and maybe he didn't spend it on booze out of guilt. Maybe he started a savings account and turned his life around. I gave another guy a buck the next day to get a bus ride to Worcester, increasing my total Boston charitable contributions by a factor of approximately infinity.

5 cents a bottle

2009-03-12T15:11:00.003-04:00

For two days in a row now I've seen discarded chicken bones on the sidewalk during my train-work walk. It made me miss St. Louis and reaffirmed my belief that peoples is people. I suspect the circumstances by which bones come to rest in the street are different in STL vs. Boston, however. In STL, I think people just throw them out their car windows. I think in Boston it is because we pay a deposit on cans and bottles. Every garbage day the city streets are literally littered with litter because a horde of entrepreneurs tear apart peoples' trash bags to fish out the discarded cans and bottles (5 cent deposit on each). It's sad and annoying. In STL, we saved our smelly bottles and cans and less smelly cardboard and hauled them down to some bins several blocks from our house every few weeks. When we moved here, we were excited that we had curbside recycling so we wouldn't have to keep the stuff in our living area or leave the house to arrow triangle. Turns out we do unless we want the government to steal our nickels. It's a super lame system. Most grocery and liquor stores have machines where you can (one at a time) load in your cans and bottles and it spits out a receipt. The problem is that most liquor stores won't take bottles for beers they don't sell. If you have eclectic taste in beer, you may have to visit 3 different stores to get your money back, which is super uncool. Also, liquor stores only take beer cans, so I can't recoup my Diet Coke losses without a separate trip. And finally, if anything happens to your bar codes or your cans get slightly crushed, SOL. I guess I could just come to terms with losing a few bucks a month and quit whining, but it's the principle dammit! What's more, there was a recent newspaper article saying the state loses 12 million dollars a year on people bringing their bottles, Neumann and Kramer style, across state lines to collect our hard earned nickles. Outrageous. I know the point of deposits is to reduce waste, and it works (see hordes of human raccoons making sure nothing worth 5 cents makes it to a landfill), but why do you have curbside recycling then!? To tease us? To make me feel like a cheap loser for not wanting to throw away change? For paper recycling? (Shut up, brain)

U2

2009-03-11T13:13:00.002-04:00

There's been a buzz about town that Irish supergroup U2 was going to be playing a top secret concert at an undisclosed, intimate Boston location tonight. They announced on the news this morning that the venue was going to be the Somerville Theater, mentioned two posts ago for its awesome museum of bad art. The news did not say whether U2 would be performing in the theater or the museum. Zing! Take that, Larry Mullins Jr.

Actually, I used to like U2 quite a bit, and I believe the show Liz and I went to after All That You Can't leave Behind was released the most I've ever paid for concert tickets. It was a great show and at the time I said it was one of the best I'd ever seen. Sometime between then and now I've started hating them. Their last two albums have been, in my humble opinion of course, crap. The songs I've heard off them have annoyed me to near Dishwalla levels. I still love 10 or so of their songs, but there may not be another band with so many songs at both extremes of my love-hate spectrum. Dave Matthews would make the list.

Pretty Nice Weekend

2009-03-09T10:19:00.002-04:00

In between bouts of despair brought on by the faltering world economy, we had a nice little weekend. Temps were in the low 60s, and so we jogged a section of a system of connected parks in Boston called the Emerald Necklace which we hadn't seen before. The section we saw is called the Back Bay Fens (near FENway Park), which I first heard of in the movie The Departed. In the movie, Jack Nicholson's character berates an underling for botching a body disposal in the fens. I didn't really see any place in the park that I'd consider safe for stashing a body one didn't want found, especially with the ocean just a short trunk ride away. But hey, what do I know about corpse disposal. Nothing, if anyone asks.

We also did some preliminary gardening as we noticed some green shoots were coming out of the ground. Liz tells me these are known as perennials. Less work for us. Thanks, botany. It's snowing like mad today so hopefully those precocious little shoots know what they're doing.

Remember the first few days of a new semester in high school or college, the anticipation of walking into a new class to see if there were any pretty ladies to look at to help pass the time? That's what getting on the subway is like only you never go to the same class twice. Getting on the bus is similar, assuming you took special ed classes in a high school for kids with tuberculosis.

And finally, you know who I've about heard enough out of? New Zealand. We get it, you're an island paradise with glaciers and rain forests and mountains and Sauvignon Blanc and volcanoes and Hobbits. Well guess what New Zealand, I did some checking and your days are numbered. Turns out the North Island and the South Island are on divergent tectonic plates. So the North Island will soon rear end Australia after it crashes into Asia while the South Island has a geological date with Antarctica. So enjoy being overrun by the Chinese, North Island. Meanwhile, your "mates" on the South Island will be living in a frozen wasteland. You won't be so smug after that, now will you. I can't wait to see the looks on their stupid Kiwi faces.

MOBA

2009-03-04T21:37:00.006-05:00

I haven't updated in a while because I was waiting for a cable I ordered which allows me to download pics off my phone. We've kind of been coasting around here for the past few weeks, although we have done a few funs. A couple weeks ago we (I) went to Cinematic Titanic, a live performance by the writers and performers of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you are unfamiliar, please turn in your MN citizenship card. It was a show from the 90s where the silhouettes of a guy and two robots in front of a movie screen showing horrible movies make wonderfully snarky and sarcastic comments about the film. I still remember the first time I randomly flipped it on the TV. I at first wondered what in the world was going on, but when I caught the gist it was an epiphany. The intrinsic humor of a horrible monster/sci-fi/60s movie combined with their razor wit and numerous MN references was an often magical combination. It provided several hours of weekend morning entertainment and played no small role in shaping my sense of humor. My other early influence was having my dad read me the Little Golden Book We Help Mommy with different interpretations of the pictures. In his version the kids were little bastards and were out to destroy their home and parents. Comedy gold to a four year old.

The live performance was of a movie called Blood of the Vampire, in which Filipinos playing Mexicans (including slaves in black face) did battle with ridiculously underpowered vampires. It was worth the price of admission. Liz saw Gran Torino instead. The theater where it was in Somerville has an added incentive to visit, the Museum of Bad Art. It featured bad art. Some examples below. Hopefully you find them as entertaining as I did. Look up MST3K on Youtube if you want a primer.

Why is Elvis crying? Maybe he had a premonition about his own toilet death. Or he was performing "In the Ghetto." That song is a tear jerker.

The previous two speak for themselves and defy explanation. One of the artists has a good grasp of how to paint 80s hair.

The following two were from a collection titled Pointless-ism:

The caption on this one was something about her apparently being half Swedish and half Polynesian.

This one was my favorite, I've included the gallery's interpretation.

In "He Was A Friend Of Mine," the cat seems to be remembering the family Husky, who has passed on to the great kennel in the sky. However, the Exorcist-inspired look in the cat's eyes seem to suggest that the cat resents the fact that the Husky was always the family favorite.

It speaks to me.

When I downloaded these from my phone, there were others from our trip to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Ironic.

Walden and Sleepy Hollow - Liz Version

2009-02-16T15:11:00.007-05:00

So you can see from Rick's earlier post we went to Walden Pond and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery last weekend. Both are located in Concord, MA about 35 minutes from our house. Concord is what you would expect, old with lots of touristy shops.

It's so nerdy, but I was super excited to visit Author's Ridge at Sleepy Hollow. I am quite the Louisa May Alcott fan. Now, I think there are two kinds of LMA fans: those who love Little Women, Jo's Boys, etc. and those who know that she penned quite a few gothic thrillers, short stories, and romantic novellas. I am the latter. At Gustavus, I was lucky enough to take a J-Term class (month long, 3 hour per day class) all about LMA my Freshman year. Not only did we read a diverse selection of her works but learned about her life. She really held her family together.

Her father, Bronson Alcott, was a total weirdo. While he did hang out with prominent people, like Emerson and Thoreau, and spoke openly against slavery he was better know for being a Transcendentalist. Now don't get me wrong, I kind of like the transcendental ideas but not enough to start a small community around them. Bronson started "Fruitlands," a small utopian community in Massachusetts. Turns out it wasn't such a good idea. One thing that stuck in my mind about "Fruitlands" was that they were only allowed to wear linen. This was because cotton was from slave labor and wool came from sheep (sheep slavery apparently). They really figured out this utopian, vegtable only eating, linen wearing society wouldn't work once the cold New England winter hit. Duh!

Anyways, here is a pic of LMA's grave (small headstone) with the large Alcott Family grave marker in the back:

Walden Pond was really amazing. Like Rick posted, it's actually pretty small but quite deep. The deepest part is over 100 feet deep. The pond was created be a retreating glacier during the last glaciation. After Thoreau spent his time at the pond in 1840's, people started frequenting the pond for swimming and leisure. An amusement park was built in the late 1860's with swings, concessions, running/biking trails, boats, bathhouses, and a dancehall. Lucky for us it burnt to the ground in 1902. Can you imagine Walden Pond with all that junk around it???

At any rate, it is now a registered National Historic Landmark. Many people do drive to the park in the summer to swim. We have heard that the Department of Conservation and Recreation closely monitors the number of people at the park and will restrict entrance to the park during the height of summer. Here are a few more photos from Walden Pond:

I do look forward to going back in the summer. I'll wade into the lake a bit but I'm freaked out about how deep it is!! It's no secret that I hate water, but I think I can stick a toe or two into Walden Pond on a hot 90 degree day this summer.

We'll keep you posted on our nerdy adventures throughout New England.

Walden

2009-02-16T14:23:00.009-05:00

We went to Walden Pond last weekend. It was pond like. It's maybe 25% larger than our little lake in MN, although it is about 10x deeper. It has pickerel, which I always thought were northerns (apparently they are different), and small mouth. Thoreau's cabin is gone but they have the original dimensions staked out. It was not large.

We also went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, but not the headless horseman one because it is in NY. This one has the graves of several famous authors. They looked like names carved into stone.

We ate well this weekend, had some southwest-inspired tapas on Friday night, salmon benedict Saturday morning, and prime rib in the evening.

The Community Center

2009-02-12T20:13:00.004-05:00

Since we no longer have exercise facilities like we did at our apartment, and our basement is a depressing place with few level spots for a treadmill, we joined the Roslindale Community Center for our fitness needs. It's nothing fancy, a running track, a couple treadmills, one of which usually works, one functional rowing machine, one functional stationary bike and a weight machine. One of the treadmills was apparently designed by Doc Brown, but instead of time traveling when it hits 88 MPH, this machine stops on a dime when it hits about 12 MPH. I've broken it twice and tonight was the first night it was up and running in about a month. I stayed off of it. Note, I do not run 12 MPH, the speedometer is ~25% fast by my calculations.

But the place has its charms. The fitness area overlooks a basketball court where they have youth basketball practice. If you can't get a small kick out of watching 3-9 year-old kids run practice drills, man, you're dead inside. If you get TOO big of a kick out of watching young kids run practice drills, however, please do not become my child's scout master. There's a cute little girl who always wears a pink t-shirt and socks to match her pink basketball, and a very determined little Asian kid, maybe three years old, who despite throwing every ounce of force he can muster behind every shot, has never propelled a ball to rim height. When he makes his first basket I shall rush the court and carry him off on my shoulders.

Recently, they've started giving youth golf lessons a couple nights a week. The first night, the long winded, Ricky Riccardoesque instructor went over lots of boring stuff like golf safety and etiquette, eventually making them practice ducking and covering when he yelled fore. Although important, watching their enthusiasm turn to bored frustration as the minutes ticked by without them getting to so much as hold a club was rather entertaining. Kids are not known for their ability to hide their emotions. Tonight, they actually got to hit whiffle balls off mats. One kid was a natural and was quickly launching balls up onto the running track. I had a mini chuckle when I whizzed about two feet in front of Liz's face as she ran by.

The place is not all cute kids and sound cardiovascular health, however. There is a mother and daughter that come in once or twice a week with the daughter's four young children. As the adults hog the treadmills and walk, literally, as slow as is physically possible to walk (think Israelites hauling pyramid stones), the kids run amok. Now, I know it's a community center and not the Boston Athletic Club, it costs 50$ a year for a family membership and it is there for the use of the whole community, but come on. First, they constantly get off the treadmills to go yell at the kids, greatly prolonging the time their "workouts" take. Second, why don't you just walk around the running track, or do something else with requiring a similar level of exertion like stand in your living room with one arm held above your head. Why don't I just run around the track, you ask? I do, but it's so small that it hurts my ankles to take the turns at the lightning speed at which I run. Tonight, when grandma finally vacated her mill and I stepped on, the youngest kid, now forced/expected to sit quietly in a chair between the machines while his mom lumbered, held out his hand to me in a "give me something" gesture as his older sister twirled around one of the roof support beams (a pole, if you will). I may have uttered the phrase "Better get used to it, kids," but it was definitely said out the side of my mouth and was almost certainly inaudible. Another regular comes in with his girlfriend (also a molasses treadmill walker) and smells very, very bad. Like when he runs around the track his musk permeates the whole gymnasium bad. Although they are probably Haitian they speak, I kid you not, French. What is it about that language that renders you incapable of basic hygiene. I know I should be happy that the economically challenged are being proactive about physical activity, but I'll mostly just be happy when it's nice enough to run outside. OK, off to my Archie Bunker chair to watch The Office.

Pretty Good Week

2009-02-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

Last week was a pretty good week. The week was shaped by three small but exciting events.

Employment - Yes, that's right, I'm finally employed. Now, it's not my dream job but it will help pay the bills and get me out of the house. I'll be tutoring high school kids that are out of school on medical leave. In the state of Massachusetts, the school districts are responsible for providing tutors to these students. My first tutoring "gig" is today, I'll be tutoring 10th grade Biology.

Deal - There is a Savers about 3 miles away from our house that I enjoy lurking in. I'm always hoping to find the next hidden treasure, the vintage piece that someone is too dumb to appreciate so they give away, take the tax deduction and go about their business. Well, I haven't exactly found diamonds, vintage Chanel or the Holy Grail, but I did get an insanely good deal on a clutch last week. Taupe, late 70s/early 80s, leather clutch. The best part? It was only $2.99. Suckers.

Scrabble - Please refer to the last sentence of Rick's January 26th post, "...I am unbeatable in Scrabble, which makes me feel...umm, good." I am pleased to report that he has been beaten. Here are the details...

It was a cold and dark Saturday night. Our tummies were full of steak tacos and we were not interested in watching a movie so out came the Scrabble board. Now, I have come close to beating Rick in the past couple months. He is a very frustrating person to play with. Every time I had a great word like "avoid" he'd ad "ed" for "avoided". Or I would play "event" and he would put "pr" on the front of the word for "prevent". He's a bit of a word mooch. I don't feel that he ever contributes to the playability of the board. By that I mean making long words in open spots on the board so there are more areas to place words.

So, on Saturday night, I had played the word "fade". Rick then played the word "jest" using the "s" in "jest" to add onto "fade" to make "fades". Now I was not pleased with this move and was wondering if it was legal. I thought the "s" had to already be on the board for him to build off of it. We needed to call for clarification. Rick's sister, Alli, is fair and knowledgeable about board games so she was our first call. No answer. Our second choice for this very important decision was Stacey, Rick's cousin, also a connoisseur of Scrabble. She did not provide the answer I was hoping. Finally, we called my mom for a second opinion. She's not one to lie or twist the truth for family when it comes to Scrabble. The woman has played that game more than anyone else I know. She and my aunt would sit up late on Saturday nights and play when we were kids. They know every "q" word that doesn't need an "u"! She confirmed that Rick was correct.

So, "jest" and "fades" landed Rick 66 points. Arrrgg. Now let me tell you I was pretty peeved because not only did he get the 66 points, but he did a jig. Yes, a little dance next to the dining room table. This was war. The game went on and came down to the last tiles. I played my final tile. Rick's turn, he couldn't make anymore words with his tiles. Scrabble rules then dictate that he must subtract his tile points from his score and since I used all my tiles I get to add them to my score. Final score....Liz 234, Rick 225.

Here's the board to prove it:

So all in all, it was a pretty good week.

Jonah

2009-02-04T09:29:00.003-05:00

I learned that jonah is an improper noun today. It means someone who brings misfortune to those around him. I couldn't find a word for someone who can't shut up about a good thing and karmicly jonahs themselves in the process, but that's what I seem to do on this blog. Exhibit A would be a previous post about how winter here is a joke. As I sat and watched another six inches of lily white inconvenience fall on top of an already abnormal yearly total yesterday, I realized I probably shouldn't have been trash talking in Dec. Exhibit B would be my previous assertion of Scrabbicular invincibility, about which Liz is currently drafting a blogospheric comeuppance.

Anyways, as I hiked from the mile from my orange line stop to my job over treacherous snow covered brick sidewalks for the umpteenth time, I was thinking about how awesome I am at avoiding falls. I think most north country natives have either an innate or quickly learned skill at ice walking, so I'm not saying I'm above average for a Minnesotan. But after reading several articles about the huge number of immigrants from hotter climes who end up in the ER with broken bones every winter, I think it's fair to say I'm above the worldwide average. Don't worry Chad, even MN natives are allowed one digger per year and it doesn't count if alcohol or dog walking was involved.

There are several moves one needs to master in order to become an ice ninja. The most basic is the "penguin shuffle" which requires not pushing off on the balls of your feet, keeping even pressure across the entire foot, and moving your legs and hips as a block. A key move for the walking to work crowd is the splash-free gait, which requires keeping your feet parallel to the ground so as not to fling salty slush up the back of your pants. But the most difficult and most critical move is the slip recovery. I'm not sure this one can be taught and there's probably not one foolproof technique that works in all situations, but I think the key points are:

1. Go with the slide. If you make too sudden of a move you're done.
2. Maintain a center of gravity.
3. Throw up a counterweight. Arm and non-sliding leg need to act in concert.
4. Hope you stop sliding and can get both feet back on terra fricare before balance is lost.
5. Smile sheepishly at anyone who witnessed your near miss.

I pulled a spectacular recovery a few weeks ago but unfortunately nobody was there to see it. So there you have it; I've damned myself to a painful and embarrassing meet and greet with the sidewalk. Watch for my next post titled "There's Absolutely No Way I'll Fall Ass Backwards Into A Large Personal Fortune and Live Out My Days In Blissful Leisure."

Genetics

2009-01-28T13:54:00.014-05:00

Since a number of people ask me what I do every day (zero is a number, look it up), I figured I'd give anyone interested a little summary. It's kind of funny to think about how much my field has changed since I started, since I just got my first real job in that field, but I guess that's science for you.

The goal of my field is to figure out what genes contribute to disease risk. After Gregor Mendel, tired of being teased about the lack of a "y" at the end of his first name, joined a man convent and channeled his sexual frustration into breeding pea plants, people figured out that genes change the way people and peas look, act, and get diseases. Years later Watson, Crick, and Rosalind Franklin (the undercredited woman who actually did the work upon which the boys based their theory) figured out what DNA looked like, and the hunt for actual disease genes was on. In the early goings, some egghead figured out that if you stain DNA with certain dyes it turns all stripey:

Then some different egghead figured out that people with certain disease have different stripey patterns than people without those diseases. Being eggheads, they correctly assumed that the genes that caused those diseases lie somewhere within the stripe that is different. The problem with this is that very few diseases are caused by a large enough genetic changes to show up in the stripey pattern. Furthermore, each stripe contains hundreds and hundreds of genes due to a miracle of packaging that allows "miles" of DNA to fit into the little structures seen above:

So if you want to nail down the culprit gene you need better resolution. Luckily, someone started noticing these "short tandem repeat" sequences spaced throughout the genome. Basically, once in a blue moon, the enzymes that copy DNA before cell division "skip" like a party house CD, causing a sequence that should have been T&A to be copied as T&A&T&A&T&A&T&A. Since this is exceedingly rare, we can assume you got yours from your parents. Side note: we share some of these repeats with chimps; why would a non-functional marker appear in exactly the same spot in humans and chimps if they didn't get it from a common ancestor? But that's another blog post. These repeats don't do anything and generally don't even lie within genes (if they happened in the middle of a gene, they would screw up that gene and that gene would not work) but they are a great way to figure out if you got a chunk of DNA from your father or your mother and whether you share that chunk of DNA with your siblings. If you share a chunk of DNA with your siblings and/or parents, and you also share a trait with that relative, we hypothesize that there is some gene within that chunk that may affect the trait. But again, the problem is resolution. We usually inherit a whole chromosome from a parent, one from mom and one from dad, so you might think the best we could do is say "the disease gene is on the dad chromosome." But luckily for us, there's a genetic phenomenon known as crossover. Basically, when a mommy chromosome and a daddy chromosome love each other very much, they lay down next to each other in the nucleus during prophase 1 of meiotic cell division and trade parts (usually, they get back the stretch of chromosome corresponding to the one they donated, but occasionally there's a mix up and big problems can result). Crossovers happen, on average, 34 times per baby. So when you get a sample of a whole bunch of families and look at the sections of DNA shared by people with similar traits in aggregate, you can narrow down the region that contains the gene that is causing the trait similarity considerably. This is called "linkage analysis," and we've found a fair number of disease genes this way.

But it hasn't worked out nearly as well as we hoped for several reasons. The primary reason is that most diseases aren't caused by a single gene. The ones we're most concerned with (hypertension, diabetes, cancer) are affected by many, many genes acting in concert to affect your overall risk of disease. No single gene has a large enough effect to easily detect. Another problem, again, is resolution. Although crossovers happen fairly frequently when you get a big enough sample of families, the best we can do is narrow down a region on a chromosome containing twenty to several hundred genes. Knowing that one of a set of a hundred genes probably contributes to disease isn't all that helpful.

Instead of sequencing relatively few markers that give us information about genetic similarity over a relatively wide region of a chromosome, people started realizing that there were single base changes (these are called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, and happen when, like, a T becomes an A) basically everywhere, and if we sequenced a boatload of these, we could narrow down disease regions better. The problem was that this was expensive to do, on the order of 2-3 dollars per SNP back in the day. Multiply that by the half million or so SNPs you need in a several hundred people and pretty soon you're talking about real money. But much like iphones going from 500 to 200 dollars, we can now get 1.2 million SNPs typed on a person for about 400 bucks. There are now many studies with several thousand participants with a million SNPs each, which should be plenty to find the major genetic contributors to a given disease.

But guess what, again it hasn't worked out that way. We've found some disease genes to be sure, but not nearly the number we know must exist. One explanation is that common diseases are caused by tons of different rare mutations that all have the same end result. People are working on sequencing people's entire genomes to see if that's the case. Recall how the human genome project was supposed to take 20 or so years and cost billions to sequence a whole genome? Well, now we can do it in a few days at a cost of 300 grand. Pretty nuts. An alternate explanation for our lack of success in finding the reasons that both you and your mom are fat is that genetics is way more complicated than we thought. It may be that DNA sequence differences are not the primary cause of differential disease risk. But that's a whole nother issue. So now you know all you need to know about genetics. No stealing my job.

Boring Update of Zero Consequence

2009-01-26T12:03:00.002-05:00

The past few weeks in Boston have been pretty uneventful. The weather has been too cold for urban outdoor activities, but I do feel our winter cred has been restored after our St. Louis hiatus. We discovered that the Imax movies at the Boston science museum are free on Fridays, so we saw Roving Mars and The Greatest Places the past two weekends. Spoiler alert: Mars had water and surprisingly Enid, Oklahoma is the world's greatest place. I saw Genesis in Imax as a very young lad and have been a fan ever since. I remember a time lapse sequence showing a landscape changing on a geological timescale and having my mind blown.

We needed to escape the confines of the house after being snowed in for the third time so we drove out to Cape Cod on MLK day. It was the best and only cape I've ever visited. We didn't go all the way out to the tip where the open spaces are, but the landward 2/3 do not warrant a special trip to Mass. Seeing the building that housed the "Sandwich Police" was good for a chuckle, however. Actually, a surprising number of unfunny building and business names are rendered mildly humorous when you stick the word sandwich in front of them. You know what else is surprisingly funny? A guy with very strong Boston accent who also has a very strong gay "accent." That's what.

In other news, Liz got a job tutoring kids who have to take extended leaves of absence from school. She's hoping for more "courageously battling cancer" kids than "a danger to his teachers and classmates" types. Also, I am unbeatable in Scrabble, which makes me feel...umm, good.

The Police Protect You

2009-01-10T10:02:00.002-05:00

To celebrate the completion of my first very important scientific grant proposal, Liz met me after work last night for some half-priced happy hour tapas at a place we'd read was good. Turns out it was closed for a special event so we settled on grilled cheese at a place that has interesting and hard to find beers. It's called Bukowski's Tavern, and like it's namesake, has a reputation for being the tavern equivalent of a jerk. Their special of the day was "Beef Stew, Big Fucking Bowl Of." After a great IPA and an even better scotch ale, we headed home on the train. As we sat on the bus waiting for it to take us from our train stop to our neighborhood, a rotund, acne faced Hispanic gentleman, possibly intoxicated, got on and started talking to no one in particular:

"Can I get a fuck the po-lice?"
"No? Ok then, you guys must all LIKE the police."
"Because they protect you."

The bus pulled away and he proceeded to loudly eat a bag of Doritos, crunching and MMM-ing. I though it was pretty funny, he wasn't being particularly loud was more creative than your average obnoxious drunk. Things took a turn for the worse, however, when he asked the guy across from him what he was looking at and told him:

"I'm going to eat you for breakfast, and I'm not even going to finish my meal."

I don't really know what the not finishing the meal part meant, but the general message was clear, and the other guy wasn't pleased. To the probable drunk's "credit" he actually took the first swing at the minding-his-own-business guy, as opposed to being all talk like most other public nuisances. The other guy took the next 15-20 swings however, as the bystanders scrambled to avoid the scrum. The bus stopped, the beater got off and the beatee sat bleeding in his seat. Apparently familiar with this kind of situation, the other people told the beatee to get off since the bus couldn't leave until either he left or the police arrived. The police arrived after a few minutes and tried to persuade the bleeding man to exit the bus. Also to his credit, I guess, he refused to admit anything had happened and stated that he didn't have a problem with nobody. They finally got him to leave by promising him a free ride home, and we made it home with no further excitement. Maybe next time he'll ask if he can get a hug the police. Oh, and if you are sensitive to f-bombs in blogs, please stop reading two minutes ago.

A Heartbreaking Tale of Unfathomable Sorrow

2009-01-02T12:38:00.001-05:00

Of the thousands of failed businesses sitting empty in cities across the country, what makes this humble Boston bakery any different? A tale of nearly unbearable sorrow spanning three decades and two states is what. Read on. But only if you’re not naturally predisposed to depression or bouts of soul crushing despair.

The story of this abandoned bakery begins in Harlem in the late seventies. As a wealthy industrialist pulls up to a basketball court, two young African American boys stop playing and climb into his waiting limousine. As they pull away to return to his Upper East Side penthouse, one boy stares after them, shivering in the thin, filthy jacket he'd found at a bus stop. A rather ugly boy, his apelike arms and heavy brow ridge gave him a brutish appearance fitting to the outbursts of violence to which he was prone. The first son of a poor mother and a father he never met, his life had been a series of hardships; one of the most crushing being abandonment by his mother after the strains of caring for him jeopardized her job with the above mentioned industrialist widower. The cruel ironies to befall Arthur Goocherson (named after his absent father so, as his mother put it, “She’d never forget the pain that man caused her”) were just beginning.

Although constantly wracked by guilt over the choice she’d made between her first born son and a return to abject poverty and unemployment, Arthur’s mother had eventually found love again—or so she thought. But certain women have tendencies to serially seek out unstable men, her new love eventually left her as well, leaving her with two new boys she was unable to properly care for. The strain was too much for Arthur’s mother, and although the doctors could find no medical explanation for her death, everyone knew it was the deep and horrible sadness that had killed her.

Realizing that the world moves to the beat of multiple drummers, the wealthy widower took pity on the two young sons of his deceased employee, taking them in and eventually adopting them; he raised them as his own along with his biological daughter whose mother had also died of a sadness based disease. Seeing his half brothers living lives of luxury while he bounced between foster homes was like battery acid on Arthur’s groin, and he lashed out at both brothers, constantly bullying the younger and savagely beating the elder when he attempted to intervene. The final straw was when his privileged half brothers were accepted to Digby, the elite prep school Arthur had always dreamed of attending. Completely oblivious to the great opportunity they’d been afforded by their adopted father’s standing with his alma mater, the ungrateful half brothers quit the school after their ridiculous request of having the school’s century old fight song replaced by a tacky, jived-up version of their own creation was denied. Their idiocy was like salted shards of glass in Arthur’s already chemically burned groin.

But before he could enact his final, murderous revenge on his younger siblings, a strange and wonderful thing happened to Arthur—he fell deeply and totally in love. Arthur’s metamorphosis was complete and profound, and love’s warmth melted away the hatred that had consumed him throughout his life like a poison fudgesicle. His repeated attempts to make amends with his half-brothers for his past bullying were met with scorn; they would never forgive him for his cruelty…much less for stealing the heart of their adopted sister.

After the death of their adopted father, the brothers used their inheritance to make life miserable for their step sister and her maligned lover. Having been disowned by her father over her relationship with Arthur (her father, despite being a man of peace on the surface and his own family being racially mixed, had an entirely different standard of tolerance where his only daughter was concerned, and the thought of Arthur’s rough, dark hands on her lily white skin ate at his mind like acid on groin skin), the youngsters, rich in love but strapped for cash, scraped together the last of their meager resources and ran off to Boston to escape their vengeful siblings.

The two bought a small storefront and some used baking equipment in the up-and-coming Boston neighborhood of Roslindale, so named for its resemblance to the hilly Glasgow suburb of Roslin. Their business, like their love, thrived initially, but the maniacal brothers would never allow them even a hint of happiness and used their fortune and influence to bribe suppliers and city officials to make running their bakery nearly impossible. Unable to afford flour and yeast at the inflated prices demanded by their unscrupulous suppliers, the bakery was on the verge of closing. One day, his love came home bearing a van load of baking supplies, saving their business from collapse. When asked where the money come from, she smiled bravely and stated that it must have been a Christmas miracle, hiding a tear and a shiny gold pendant shaped like a rabbit's head. But the profits made from those supplies couldn’t pay for the exorbitant license fees and taxes charged by corrupt city officials. But Arthur’s true love continued to bring home unexplained cash, and he was so happy to keep his business running that he hardly noticed the string of armed robberies plaguing the neighborhood.

The brothers were relentless in their quest to ruin the lives of the struggling bakers, eventually getting this story’s heroine hooked on the heroin they’d paid thugs to slip into her morning coffee. Arthur, although still alive from a medical perspective, died on the day that the only woman who’d ever loved him overdosed. As he rocked her pale, cooling body, he prayed to God to grant him just one stroke of luck and to take him away to rejoin his love. But God instead gave him a different stroke, hemorrhagic and debilitating. He spent the rest of his days in a semi-vegetative state, mumbling incoherently about "the evil midget," but his state appointed care givers didn't know what he was talkin’ `bout. The only mercy was his inability to remember the brief happiness he knew during him and Kimberly’s early days in Boston.

The elder brother, racked with guilt over what they’d done to their sister eventually turned to a life of drugs and crime as well. The younger brother, his fortune squandered on a pointless vendetta, filed for bankruptcy and was forced to work menial jobs and appear in demeaning cameo roles, eventually becoming a national symbol for lost opportunity. Pretty sad, all in all.

NE Snowstorm Day 3 - It's Official

2008-12-21T10:23:00.008-05:00

9:00 am
The weather man made it official....we've got a Nor'easter on our hands.

10:00 am
I really do love my husband and cat, but I'm not sure I can stay at home for another day. I've just looked at the bus schedule and planned an escape route to TJ Maxx and Old Navy.

10:05 am
Just looked out the window again...don't think we'll be going anywhere today.

2:00 pm
We've worked up the courage to go shovel again and dig out the car.

7:00 pm
The snow has stopped and the wind has picked up. The weather man was just on forecasting 50 degrees for the high on Christmas.

NE Snowstorm Day 2

2008-12-20T23:59:00.002-05:00

9:00 am
Made waffles and bacon to fuel ourselves for the shoveling to come.

11:00 am
Shoveled out the car as you've seen on news footage of New Englanders digging out from snow.

12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Knitted, watched bad TV. It's been snowing all day. What we shoveled has now been covered with a fresh layer of snow.

7:00 pm
Rick made delicious burgers with blue cheese. I made an acorn squash.

9:00 pm
Watched the movie "Bottle Rocket." Hoping snow will let up a bit tomorrow.

Preparing for our first big NE Snowstorm

2008-12-18T23:59:00.001-05:00

People are absolutely freaking out about the snowstorm that is anticipated to hit us this afternoon/evening. The Governor even ordered all non-essential government employees stay home from work today. Here is how my snowstorm day went:

8:30 am
Dropped off Rick at the T station.

8:45 am
Went to Roche Brothers grocery store to pick up cardamom for a recipe. The parking lot was packed. People were circling the parking lot in their cars waiting for a parking space to open up like buzzards circling an almost dead animal. No cardamom but did get some asparagus for a salad.

9:15 am
Stopped at Bay Sweets Middle Eastern Grocery on my quest for cardamom. People were also stocking up there. Pita, olives, and yogurt were bought in mass quantities. One gentleman bought three quarts of olives. Really? This storm is only supposed to last the weekend. How many olives can you eat in one weekend.

9:30 am
A. C. Moore craft store. I had to return some yarn that I did not use on a project. Total old lady thing to do, but I wanted my two bucks back.

10:00 am
Costco. I was there yesterday and it had been nuts. Today was even worse. At least 75 people were lined up outside the store waiting for it to open at 10 am. All I wanted to do was an exchange on some sheets. Boy I picked the wrong day to do that. Lines were long but I made it out of there in a half hour.

11:30 am
Watched The View and had a little lunch. Also ate a couple Christmas cookies. No snow yet to report. Noon news was doing it's best to get everyone nervous about the storm.

1:45 pm
Just finished knitting a winter hat...not for the storm, for a Christmas gift. First tiny snowflakes begin to come down.

2:30 pm
Light dusting of snow on the ground. I'm off to pick up Rick from the T station. Although we have a driveway, we usually park on the street. Our driveway is very narrow and has huge cement walls on both sides (remember, the house is built into the side of a hill). I'm thinking that back in 1925 they were only concerned about fitting their Model T in the driveway hence it being so narrow. Everyone who lives on our street has there "spot" where they park everyday. Today when people left for work they put parking place holders in their spots. Most have orange road work cones marking their parking spaces. This city must be missing an awful lot of orange road cones. One person marked their spot with their trash can. I was told by a neighbor that you can pretty much put anything out in the street to hold your parking space. Since I haven't "borrowed" an orange cone from a city crew yet, I will be placing a large Lowe's leaf bag full of leaves in our spot. The Boston Globe put together a nice slide show of parking-spot savers here: http://www.boston.com/realestate/gallery/parking_space_savers?pg=7

3:15 pm

Traffic wasn't bad on my way to get Rick and back. Once we arrived home we decided to walk down to the village for a few ingredients needed in our dinner. The snow was pretty wet and the wind strong. The snow was like little needles on our faces. After our supplies were bought, the trek back home wasn't too bad. It was uphill but the snowflakes were bigger and softer.

5:00 pm
Just in from shoveling. For once in our lives we have to shovel our own stairs and sidewalk. Every other place we've lived was rented and we had landlords and snow removal services to take care of these tasks. As I am typing this, the news just reported that it's snowing one inch per hour. The problem with living on a hill is where to put snow! I ended up shoveling the snow up against the stone wall. There was no way I was going to haul it up onto the hill. Plus, I think that snow melts here within a week. It's not like Minnesota where once you've shoveled snow in one spot it doesn't leave till March.

5:05 pm
Rick fixed us a little snack and a drink to warm us up from the inside out. Then we began to make dinner...Mughlai Chicken. Recipe can be found here http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/mughlai-chicken-recipe/index.html . It was delicious.

7:00 pm
Rick took the next round of shoveling while I took a soak in the tub.

9:00 pm
The winter wonderland outside continues. Rick and I hunker down for a few games of Cribbage.

10:30 pm
Rick doesn't want to play Cribbage anymore. Probably because I beat him 3 times. Yep, that's right 3 times.

Here is a pick of our street:

12:00 pm
Bedtime.

Granted, Mass Winter is a Hoax

2008-12-16T15:03:00.003-05:00

While temperatures in MN hover in the imaginary numbers, we've had a warm spell of late. It's the middle of December and the herb garden we inherited still has green thyme and rosemary. Thanks, previous owner hippies. Yesterday Liz picked up leaves in a tank top and I had St. Louis levels of wet boxer elastic after my ride in. But while temperatures have been mild, winds have been wild. I'm told that this is normal for Boston, and since we live on a pretty substantial hill we take its full force right in the kisser. And by kisser, I mean house. Last night was among the worst; any 'coons that may have been lingering in the trees are probably now residents of Martha's Vineyard. But hey, I'll take 60 degrees in Dec. any time. The ice storm that decimated Western Mass. last week didn't touch us, although 20 miles east of here looks like a war zone. The ocean does strange things to the weather patterns that I don't understand. Amateur meteorology was easy in MN and MO--look west, wait. That doesn't seem to work here.

In other news, I'm writing my first grant proposal. It is on Alzheimer's disease. I'm kind of new to this so I alternate between feeling like the smrtest person in the world and an incompetent boob on an hourly basis. Sadly, I think only one of those can be correct. Maybe if I cure it they will let me change the name to Sherva's disease. Rub it in the faces of those uppity Gehrigs, Hansens, Korsakoffs, and Christmases. Huh, turns out Ricketts is named after a person, probably me. With my legacy secure, I think I'll call it a day.

Happy 33rd Birthday Richard!!

2008-12-11T14:01:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was Rick's 33rd Birthday. We celebrated by having a lovely lunch at Equator (Thai restaurant) and a nummy lobster dinner at Chez Sherva. That's right, in a move to become more New Englander we (and by we I mean Rick) made lobsters at home. That's right folks, Rick picked them out of a tank at the store, they were driven to our house in our trunk (no way were they getting in the actual car), and given a lovely, new, steamy, gingery, garlicy, lemony place to live in a pot on our stove. They were accompanied by a lovely pea and white wine risotto.

Here is the Chef in action:

*Rick nicely alerted me to leave the kitchen before our pals were placed in their new "home."

In the pic below you can see the steam coming off of the lobsters:

So this was the first time I had ever had eaten lobster out of the shell. I have only previously had it as an ingredient in pastas and such. It was probably one of the messier meals that I've eaten. It took a little getting used to where to crack open the claws and legs.

In the picture below I'm about to take my first bite:

*Note to concerned fashionistas: I did have a cute outfit on earlier in the day...I changed to an old sweatshirt instead of using a lobster bib.

Turns out I don't really like lobster. It's okay, but I knew I wasn't enjoying it as much as Rick who was raving about how delicious it was. We topped off the evening of course with some devilishly good birthday cake...homemade chocolate cake with homemade chocolate cream cheese frosting.

More NE firsts

2008-12-08T14:52:00.002-05:00

Snow flew for the first time here on Sunday morning. It was pretty weak from an accumulation standpoint, maybe an inch of large fluffy flakes. Although the area's original inhabitants may have had multiple words for snow, my descriptors are limited to those used by the pilgrims, whose ancestral form of English had only one word for snow (Snowe). The E was silent, as we all know. But it is a little known fact that was also deadly, due to the fact that the small pox virus was carried to the New World in the bottom of a bottle of contaminated ink from China, which was subsequently unleashed upon the Americas when one of the pilgrims was quill pen blogging about the first winter. Had the E been left off the end of the word, the virus may never have become airborne, and hundreds of millions of lives might have been spared. But hey, we'd all be speaking Algonquin right now if it hadn't, so thanke Gode fore olde Englishe.

Yes, We Have Coon!

2008-12-03T10:41:00.012-05:00

Over the past month that we have been living here in our new house we've heard some suspicious sounds. One night about a month ago, just as we had gone to bed we heard a squeaking noise. Not a cute squeaky noise, but one that was definitely coming from some sort of animal that I did (and do) not want to share my house with. This sound freaked me out and I made Rick investigate the closets that are in the side eaves of our house. Oh no...had we just bought a house with an animal infestation. He didn't find anything but I decided that a war was upon us. The next day I purchased some good old fashioned mouse traps and hoped that we just had a couple mice in the house. Crossing my fingers that we were not dealing with squirrels or bats in our attic, Rick took care of the dirty work and put out the traps.

One night Rick and I were relaxing in the living room when Phoebe happily pranced into the living room with a baby mouse in her mouth. Ah! She doesn't kill them, I think she just likes to play with them. The baby mouse fell out of her mouth and Rick finished the job that needed to be done...with a shoe. We eventually caught another mouse in our attic. It's been warm here the past few weeks and we have been mouse free. I'm hoping that as it gets colder the neighborhood mice look at our house and remember that two members of their mischief did not return. It probably also helps that there are three neighborhood cats that wander through our yard.

We have a ton of leaves in our backyard. Since our yard is tiered, it really isn't rakeable. At night you can hear things rustle around in the leaves. I had always assumed that it was squirrels or mice until last night. My assumptions were wrong. As we turned out the light and snuggled into bed I heard that horrible squeaking noise. I cringed and made way onto Rick's side of the bed. There it was again, squeak squeak. It sounded like it was coming from under the bed. This is not possible since we do not have a bed frame. The head of our bed is up against the windows in our bedroom. I heard some leaf rustling and saw some movement out the window in our backyard. Rick got the heavy duty flashlight and we investigated. Sure enough, three raccoon were hanging out on the rock wall in our backyard making their way onto one of the large oak trees. Rick was able to point the flashlight right at them as they looked back at us! Oh no! We have coon in our yard!

So as I fell asleep last night I wondered where to raccoon sleep during the day? Do we have a burrow in our yard that they go down during the day? I then fell asleep until they woke me up again an hour later with their squeaking and leaf rustling.

So this morning (after I fell back asleep for another hour after Rick left...so tired from the raucous raccoon ruckus) I have been researching raccoons. When my sister-in-law and brother-in-law first moved into their house in Maple Grove they had a bit of a raccoon problem. Our brother-in-law received a BB gun for Christmas and the problem was taken care of. I kind of felt bad for the poor raccoons that entered A and N's yard after N received the BB gun. But now I understand.

So here is what I learned about raccoons this morning:

1. Their conservation status is listed as "least concern." - Good, nobody will notice if three mysteriously disappear from my yard.

2. Average life expectancy is 1.8 to 3.1 years. - Hopefully we'll be bringing that range down in our neighborhood.

3. Raccoons in urban settings are usually met with a range of outrage to intensive feeding. Wildlife authorities caution against feeding wild animals as they may become obtrusive. - I am obviously outraged. This statement made me think of Rick's aunt Lori who has been known to leave food out for the "cute little mice" that live around her house.

4. The fur of raccoon is used for fur clothing, especially for coats and characteristic coonskin cap. - Hmmm, I like fur coats. I'm sure my nephew Reilly would like a coon skin cap.

5. The first edition of The Joy of Cooking, released in 1931, had a recipe for preparing raccoon. - One of the farmer's markets that we used to frequent in St. Louis had a meat market. One Saturday as we passed the meat market there was a huge sign that read "Yes, We Have Coon!" So I do know for a fact that people still eat Raccoon.

So after my vast research of raccoon on Wikipedia (everything on that site is for sure true), I am most certain that a den of them is living under the oak tree in the backyard and they must be dealt with. Maybe Rick will find a lovely Red Ryder BB gun under the tree this Christmas.

Thanksgiven

2008-12-01T09:55:00.002-05:00

We got our first New England (NE) Thanksgiving (ThxG) under our belts. Not to sound smug, but until you've experienced ThxG in its birthplace, well, you just haven't experienced ThxG. I'd love to tell you all the secrets, wonders, and rituals associated with ThxG in NE, but we were sworn to secrecy in an ancient and elaborate initiation ceremony and were we to disclose any of those secrets we would be forced to submit to another ritual known as "The Stuffing of One Thousand Sorrows," a fate worse than death. Well, OK, I suppose sharing just one NE ThxG secret wouldn't hurt: here, they have a magic gravy made from angel drippings that temporarily gives you the ability to fly but it tastes just like regular gravy.

Actually we went to a co-worker's house who likes taking in strays on major holidays. It was really fun. She had a very diverse family with representatives from several countries and "all" major religions. This translated into more diverse food choices as well.

Brisket on ThxG: good idea.

My co-worker's husband was a character. He works two full time jobs because he likes "The good life," which means throwing elaborate parties several times a year and having a substantial supply of rare whiskey and good cigars. He was a dead ringer for Muhammed Ali and doesn't take kindly to people wearing hats inside the house. I was glad I don't wear hats. Everyone was friendly, which is nice when you have twenty-odd people in a ~700 sqare foot condo, approximately half of which were occupied by ThxG decorations and half of the remaining half by food. It was fun. We had our own ThxG on Sunday so we could make everything exactly the way we like it. We did use the new magic gravy recipe but were too full to fly anywhere safely. Plus, the Vikings were on TV.

This Old House - Upstairs Edition

2008-11-26T12:00:00.014-05:00

It's almost Turkey Day! This year will be truly an authentic Thanksgiving since we will be celebrating in Massachusetts...the home of Thanksgiving!

As promised, here are some before and after pictures of our upstairs bedrooms. You will notice that the guest room had been a shade of pink (surprise, surprise). The "master" bedroom was green. I put master in quotes since it's just a regular bedroom with the exception that Rick and I sleep in it.

"Master Bedroom"

Before

After

Guest Room

Before

After

Doesn't the guest room look inviting now? If you come visit we'll make Phoebe get off the bed.

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving!

-Liz