Berry picking without the berries

A trip just south of here brought us to tiny Raphine, VA. Since the name "Raphine" is derived from the Greek for "to sew", it's fitting that we stopped at the Orchardside Yarn Shop. Since shopping for knitting yarn is not an activity that appeals to my male counterpart, it's fortunate that this aptly-named shop is part of a larger orchard. We tromped around in the January snow and pretended it was summer.




Other things to visit in Raphine include (and may actually be limited to) alpacas, wine, and flour.

Lexington and Robert E. Lee.

A recent trip to Lexington taught me all I never knew about Robert E. Lee:

He was big on details, precision, and real-world utility. He studied intensely, and was a master at topography, artillery placement and a ton of other specialties that would make him a good guy to go camping with. He would probably be a strong contender to win "Survivor". He would most definitely be depressed (even more so than he was in his day) to see the descendants of those he fought for using a GPS to get to the McDonald's two blocks away.

He was big on gentlemen being gentlemen, and instilled manners and courtesy as a tenant of education at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). A glance at the Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour, which follow this school of thought, shows how far we've fallen as a society. My personal favorite: "When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usualy Discovered." Point taken.

Lee was big on useful education, and he created the nation's first school of journalism, along with law and business schools that would complement the existing liberal arts curriculum at Washington College. This arrangement was unheard of at the time; however, I have not yet found a market for my college essays on female identity in The Great Gatsby, so I can say with some certainty that Lee might have been on to something.

He was also upfront with his strengths and weaknesses, which was probably for the better of his college's students. On teaching (and why he didn't do it):

"There is an art in making a subject agreeable which I have never found I possessed."

If only we could all be that self-aware. All this intense Civil War history, and the part that gets me the most? He was a sucker for animals (like, buried-with-his-horse kind of a sucker):

"Traveller is my only companion . . . he and I wander out in the mountains and enjoy sweet confidence."

Sweet confidence = loving what you have in front of you, and needing nothing else. If that doesn't sum up what it is to love a pet, I'm not sure what does.

More about visiting the Lee Chapel and Museum in Lexington, VA

More about guys who love their pets

Do not look at me in the eyes!

For years, it's been pretty clear to me that Tina Fey and I are meant to be the best of friends. I don't mean this in a crazy stalker way*. I just think that we have enough in common to create a lasting friendship - including a shared world view rooted almost entirely in how obnoxious other people can be.

Exhibit A: In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Tina takes to task all those who ask way-too-personal life questions and dispense unneeded advice. In her case, it's about balancing work and a family, and she touches on the perverse, startling, and all-too-common question, "So, when are you having kids?"

My number one principle is "Get out of my face. Now." This partially explains why this question (and others like it) dig at me, but there is also a more general disrespect at play that I think many other 20-something women experience as well, married or not. I poked around to see what others had to say on the subject, and I found a surprising number of "What's the big deal with asking?" responses mixed into the vitriol of "none of your beeswax."

I culled a few sassy responses to this question, but my all-time favorite has to be this e-card.





*Please ignore the fact that this is exactly what a crazy stalker would say

Knowing what it means...

BBQ shrimp Po-Boy and some incredible Gumbo at Luizza's



Some kind of dessert creation from the restaurant at The Mariott






Bananas Foster stuffed French toast, migas con chorizo, and a pumpkin pancake at Surrey's Cafe

They're not tricks! They're illusions!

Yes, I knit.

No, I'm not elderly. I do enjoy Scrabble, and being asleep by 10 pm. I may also have two cats. Now, stop trying to build a wacky stereotype out of all of that. Knitting is badass. And, by the way, I do stay up past 10 sometimes. (Usually to knit...)

Many people are not aware of the fact that knitting is badass. They may happen upon me knitting and offer me some dried prunes, or ask me when Murder, She Wrote comes on. These people are not the smartest. They also are not getting any hats from me.

This blog focuses on the mathematical side of knitting and other crafts. This take on knitting is no surprise to actual knitters, though it is hard to ignore the rote mathy-ness of the website itself (check out the home page for step by step instructions on how to navigate the website).

Aside from the obvious combo-nerdiness of the site topic, the best thing about the site is the World of Illusion Knitting. A cult, you ask? Nah, that's what this place is for. Illusion knitting, or shadow knitting, is a technique that creates a picture in your project - one that is only viewable from a given angle.

If you like this concept, but have no patience to make things for yourself, try going 90's kitsch and getting yourself a T-shirt. Then, if you like that idea, click here in case you need to be explicitly shown why it is (and probably always was) a bad idea. As you might suspect, I suggest taking up knitting instead.

And if you're just into illusions, hypercolor, knitted or otherwise:

There is nothing unappealing to me about this video. I love this Swedish man. I love his fancy Minority Report-style screen. I even love the weird, slightly abandoned-looking studio space they're in. Granted, it's probably better off that he has these things. I would most like to rollerblade around the building while chasing my cats, before settling down to knit and watch Interactive 30 Rock. Hans, however, has chosen to use his awesomeness to educate us about global health:



And I might have shared this before, but since it's so cool, I shall share it again:

http://www.visualizing.org/

Data visualization techniques make me feel fairly smart with minimal effort on my part, and all through some pretty little pictures.

I think I'll go to Boston

Boston lit their Faneuil Hall Christmas tree just two nights before this picture was taken. Shouldn't we save the intensive decorating for when all of the natural decorations fall off the trees?

All this walking around, and I'm still stuffed from all of the good food we ate. Cheap, yummy Thai food? Yes please. How about eating handmade pasta in the North End, while an adorable older gentleman plays the accordion and sings to you? Indian food? Crab rolls? Oh sure, but only because you're twisting my arm.



Chicken curry dumplings and something else that was way too delicious to ponder for very long

Pumpkin Rosemary Pasta

Following the weekend of pumpkin brownies (found on the gorgeous Tastespotting) I was left with half a can of pumpkin puree, and no desire to bake anything else ridiculously sweet. I also hate, hate, hate wasting food. I figured I should use this to my benefit and make something slightly snazzy for dinner. For the record, this means it would have to be more enticing than cereal, without moving much past the difficulty of say, scrambling eggs. A tight squeeze, but I know that sometimes I deserve a meal that does not get poured from a box. Cut to a few steps later:




I got the basic recipe from Martha Stewart. Be warned that her website features a tiny little avatar of her, staring at you judgmentally as you cut corners and substitute ingredients. I used small shells instead of penne and milk instead of half and half (cause that's what I had), omitted the wine vinegar (cause it was on a really high shelf and, as established above, I'm lazy), and I added cranberries at the end (because cranberries are always awesome). Don't skip frying the rosemary; it's a fun texture and it makes everything taste so yum.

I still have many cans of pumpkin puree in the kitchen, and I consider myself prepared for the worst. I read an article a few years ago about certain areas of the country completely running out of pumpkin puree around the holidays, instilling a moderate-to-severe panic among housewives of a baking inclination.

Remember this blog, and how things used to be?

Those were the days. I'm not even sure where things went wrong. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, but we began to drift apart.

My weekends started to fill up with other things. I didn't want it to be the case, but they took priority over you. And anytime I had a spare moment, I was too tired to communicate. I didn't feel like I had anything worth saying.

But things are different now.

Let's just jump back to June and pretend we didn't lose that summer to moving towns and other life events.

Let's start fresh.

We can take it slowly. I'll share a recipe or two - something pleasing to the eye, but not terribly insightful. You can bat your eyes and laugh at my jokes a little more than you need to. We can figure out where to take it from there.

I think we can make this work. Again.

I am everything you hate about the world...

...Except Marmaduke. I'm not Marmaduke.


If you haven't seen the trailer yet...well, I would say you should try not to, but it seems inevitable. Just brace yourself, remember that there still are good things in the world, and that this movie is just a showcase of bad, bad choices made by other people. (Owen Wilson? Really?)

Even scarier is the fact that these bad decisions can lead not-so-smart people to make their own bad decisions. In real life. With real dogs.

This would be slightly less disturbing if the movies that prompted these dog frenzies were at least, well, good. (No, I did not happen to catch Beverly Hills Chihuahua - no need, as the hundreds of dogs dancing on top of Mayan ruins in the trailer told me all I needed to know.) I'm hoping that once someone comes out with a movie starring an adorable CGI black mamba (hopefully voiced by Vince Vaughn), it will put an end to this sad subset of life imitating what passes as art.