Happy Birthday to Amurrica/My Blog

While I was at the July 4th Parade in my town--And by that I mean strolled out my front door in my pajamas  with my high fiber cereal--I became aware that I had a similar running commentary in my head about the various parts of the parade as I did last year. Why does this matter? Because I have an increase in running commentary in my head when I'm thinking about blogging about something.

Then it hit me; I've had this blog for at least one year and I probably missed it's Birthday! Indeed, upon inspection, my blog was birthed on June 5th, 2010 ("Calisthenics in Coolidge Woods"), making this a one-month belated Birthday retrospective.

The blog entry about July 4th, 2010 ("Bang(s) goes the Fourth") actually didn't cover the parade as much as I thought I would have, and therefore I will briefly cover this year's parade before diving into my self-indulgent tribute.

By brief I mean I will break each segment of the parade into my Favorites and Not Favorites:

Favorites:

Floats with steel drum bands

Floats with old man bands

Floats representing organic farms

Unicyclists

Yo Gabba Gabba and Hello Kitty

Super heroes

Free masons racing around each other in motorized mini trucks

A hearse

Sassy little vintage cars

Not Favorites:

The many fire trucks blaring their sirens for over 15 minutes

So many fire trucks

Politicians. Do not care.

Mixed Feelings:

Horses in general, not favorite.

Horses with braided hair, favorite.

Clowns, favorite.

Clowns dancing with bystanders, not favorite.

Lady dancers. Mixed feelings.

Now, on to my Birthday party. I will update you on how my life is the same or different by following up on some of my favorite blog entries of seasons past.

October 28, 2010: "$6 is a great deal": Amy and I hike Mt. Monadnock on a blustery Autumn day. Since then, Amy and I have been impatiently waiting for another Monadnock hike but as the weather gets warmer, the busier our schedules get. However, we will be able to sneak in a hike THIS COMING SUNDAY before she leaves on a trip. A significant change, however, is that a) I now own hiking boots b) my husband will be coming c) Adam and I are using this as a practice for our trip to the Alps in August. Amy has thoughtfully allowed Adam to be included in our adventure. Unfortunately, Adam doesn't eat PB and J and therefore will starve because Amy and I won't be packing him any snacks.

July 3, 2010: "Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose": Adam and I take an awkward and hideous stool that had been placed with a "free" sign at the end of our neighbor's driveway and turn it into a nifty little shelf for plants. The follow-up is that we will soon be having our own yard sale because we are moving at the end of August. Our yard sale is going to be totally sick and we will be selling my shoes, his clothes, barely used toys, a set of knives, and much much more! July 30-31!! BE THERE. Unfortunately, I've become money-crazy and am attempting to accumulate stuff from parents and friends to sell at my yard sale, which will ultimately lead to acquiring more things than we already have when they fail to sell.

August 28, 2010: "Raindrops on roses, harnesses on kittens": Our first-born (now age 3), Nuni, is taken for a walk on her harness and enjoys her life. Update: Nuni no longer enjoys her life as a result of this little ball of terror

We only have pictures of her sleeping because all other pictures are inevitably full of movement and blurry

Despite the well-pace introduction (January 17, 2011: "Cat intro Stage One"), Beatrix's personality is jovial, easily-excited, and bordering on hyper-active. Nuni, on the other hand, is serene, stand-offish, and prissy. A day WILL NEVER, I repeat, Never, come that these two will love each other. Correction--Beatrix loves everything and Nuni will never love Beatrix.

So what have we learned today? I'm moving out of Natick, meaning there will be new pizza places to tour (October 18, 2010) and new nature paths to walk (October 6, 2010). I'm going on a big trip to Europe meaning there will be more restaurants to review (June 10, 2010) and cultural experiences to degrade (June 11, 2011). And finally, I still have the same friends as always so I will continue to hike Mt. Monadnock (October 28, 2010), paint pottery (July 24, 2010, June 11, 2011), and eat in nice restaurants (August 21, 2010).

Rosalind, Betsey and Fritz

As usual, Mary and I drank a lot of wine on Saturday. It ended with housing a pizza and Mary going to bed to sleep off her stomach ache at 9pm. BUT, it started with a warm Saturday afternoon at the Veritas Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The wine tour is run by City Wine Tours for $56, but we had purchased half price tickets through Gilt City. Our "wine ambassador" was Rosalind Johnson, who told us this was her first tour through City Wine Tours, but that she is one of the founding members of Diva's Uncorked--Meaning, she was qualified. Not only that, she was very sweet, sassy and fun. Huge fan. Of Rosalind.

There were a total of 7 people on the tour, including us. At the Hotel Veritas, we tried two wines, the first a sparkling and the second a Chardonnay from California.

 

We learned some things about wine including ... How to smell it ("Pear!!!!!", "Vanilla!!!!"), how to hold the glass (preventing warming up your wine by holding the stem), and how the width of the legs (i.e. residue that descends) after swirling the glass indicates the alcohol content.

The Morgan Chardonnay was ultimately my favorite on the tour and I will probably try to find it to buy in the future. I looked it up and it's $20, so more expensive than my typical $4.99 bottle from Trader Joes, but the point is that I'm learning what I like. Right?

We then proceeded through Havahd Yahd and Rosalind pointed out the Harvard library and the statue of John Harvard. Fun Fact! The undergrads pee on John Harvard's shoe. Fun Fact! All tourists touch John Harvard's shoe for good luck.

Our next step was Casablanca, a restaurant that I've seen and been intrigued by but had never been inside of. What a treat! Here we tried a red wine which I found Just OK. Indeed, just as Rosalind said, when paired with the right food, it tasted better. Both the owner and the chef were present and were both very nice and able to answer any questions. The chef brought out a flat bread with baby arugula, mascarpone, balsamic onions, roasted grapes, and goat cheese. Um.....Best. Ever.

In addition, the wine began settling in and we all began having a little bit more fun. Mary and I finally chatted a bit more with the couple that was there, Betsey and Fritz. Fritz was just there for moral support for Betsey because he only drinks beer. They were fun and we found that we had common interests (Therapy.). Highlight of Casablanca--Betsey and Fritz or flatbread pizza? It's a toss up.

The final stop was the slightly stuffy Harvest Restaurant where it was too dark for day time and the waiter didn't stick around long enough to repeat what type of wine it was, though we eventually requested to see the bottles again. The first was Evodia Grenache from Spain. Again, not my thing, it was just OK. And next was a dessert wine, Chateau Bel Air, semillion, from Bordeaux. This was obviously quite sweet, so I loved it.

 

So the conclusion is that I would definitely do the North End version of this tour if I can do it for less than $56. On the other hand, I may just want to get drinks with Rosalind, Betsey and Fritz.

Notable artists of the twenty-first century

I should mention that both of these art-related activities were done in the company of Jamie. We like to hold a make-your-own summer camp in which we seek out activities that help us nurture our mind, body, and souls.

Our most recent activity was seeing the Chihuly exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. Dale Chihuly is an American- born artist that studied glass as a medium to create art and now creates sculpture and installations using the method of blowing glass. His work is in over 200 museum wordlwide, but some of his pieces are also temporary outdoor installations.

My only complaint about the exhibit is that, going into it, I had no understanding about the process of blowing glass, and I left the exhibit equally uninformed. I imagine I could find out more about this on You Tube ...Chihuly glass blowing at Iittala factory.

Besides that, this exhibit ended up being my heaven. The colors were amazing and enormity of the pieces blew my mind. Blew it like glass. I thank my friend Jamie for taking these pictures with her iPhone. She loves her iPhone.

This is called the Ikebana Boat. According to the sign, this idea was spawned spontaneously when Chihuly threw some glass into a river in Finland in 1995 to see if they'd float, sink or break. Most of them floated, so he had to get some Finnish people to row over and retrieve all his glass. When they returned with boats filled with glass he says, he says to himself, "I'ma make some art!" (-Not a direct quote).

Nex, Mille Fiori, means One Thousand Flowers. I like to call it "the marsh". According to the sign at the museum, while Chihuly has created many versions of this particular installation, the one at the MFA is the largest Mille Fiori to date. Well la-tee-da.

And finally, the Chandeliers, were enormous pieces hanging from the ceiling from metal poles and looked like they could murder you at any moment. They too were in colors that made my eyes sing. The also had organic, visceral shapes within them and I found them to be a quality projective test. That is: does it look like genitals or an animal or like your crappy childhood?

Definitely an octopus

Hehe, frog hands everywhere!

All in all, I went into this not knowing what to expect and ended up loving it. It was beautiful and interesting and it inspired me to come up with this little ditty: "Chihuly, Chihuly, Chihuly preformance fleece...Chihuly, ..."

Just about two weeks before seeing this exhibit, another artist was working equally as hard in her studio. Artist = me, studio = The Clayroom. As you may do not recall, I have been here once before with the same friend. You buy a pre-made piece of pottery and you paint it. Incidentally, when I showed my father he was stunned at my ability to create such a perfectly formed piece of pottery. Then I told him that I merely painted the design on it and hadn't actually physically created the canister.

Last time I painted a calico cat bank. This time I painted a mini-canister. My initial hope had been there'd be mini-planters, but there wasn't. So instead, I stuck to the same design plan, but now it will probably hold solo earring-backings, rather than flowers.

 

 

If you were interested in my artistic process, I have created a You Tube video to demonstrate: Jessie's Creative Process

Animal Summer Funtimes

Summer is a good time for reading outside, going to BBQ's and sweating a lot. Because I never like to spend more than 5 hours out of range of an animal, there must  cbereative solutions developed to ensure that they can join in on summer funtimes.

A well known fact is that I own a cat gazebo. Another well known fact is that Nuni (age/sex/race?3/female/calico) hates Beatrix (8 months/female/stately grey tuxedo). To kick off the summer and to celebrate her third birthday, Nuni was given the pleasure of spending some alone time in her cat gazebo as I read in the sun.

 

 This is the greatest gift she could have ever received. A few days later, when Adam and I chose to dine outside, we decided to give Nuni the opposite gift. Which went Just OK. 

 

Yes, this is Beatrix leaping full throttle at the netting.

First, Beatrix didn't understand that this was fun and instead meowed for 40 minutes. Second, Nuni was perturbed that Beatrix was now stepping on the toes of her outdoor toys as well as her indoor toys and decided to supervise and meow for 40 minutes at the window.

Seriously. Look at that.

Thankfully, rather than murder each other once they were put back under the same roof, they turned into soupy pancakes because of the heat

 

Next destination: BBQ in Connecticut. But how will we transport our new, timid, puppy sister-in-law? Well...

A puppy car seat, obvs.

Sometimes I travel with animals and other times I travel for animals. For good measure, I will display hilarious looking animals that reside at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island.

Chickens are always hilarious

For realsies doing the one-foot thing

Just a porcupine snoot

Fun fact: Look how small camel poop is!

Our national bird sitting majestically in a bush with it's mouth wide open saying nothing (political commentary or...the literal truth?)

 

180 degree neck action