The day after.

Well, it's the day after Groundhog Day (but you knew that, right?). Yesterday morning I was actually awake before 7am and was watching the news, when I was surprised to see that there were predawn fireworks and an entire festival happening in western PA. The announcer said that Punxsutawney Phil would emerge from his hole and speak Groundhogese to a man in the "inner circle," who would then translate that into a human tongue.  So I hopped onto the interwebs because it was the first time I had heard the mysteries of Groundhog Day explained thus:

Frequently Asked Questions About Groundhog Day

1.    Yes, Punxsutawney Phil is the only true weather forecasting groundhog. The others are just imposters. [So where are these imposters? Is there a Punxsutawney, Alabama, or something?]

 2.     There has been only one Punxsutawney Phil.  Punxsutawney Phil gets his longevity from drinking “groundhog punch” (a secret recipe). One sip, which is administered every summer at the Groundhog Picnic, gives him seven more years of life. [Holy scientific breakthrough!]

 3.    On February 2nd, Phil comes out of his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob, in front of thousands of faithful followers from all over the world, to predict the weather for the rest of the winter. [Followers?]

 4.    According to legend, if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring. [Phil lives in a cage in the Punxsutawney Library -- or at least he did several years ago when we biked through -- so he probably doesn't see natural light that often. I can imagine that shadows would sort of throw him.]

 5.    No, Punxsutawney Phil’s forecasts are not made in advance by the Inner Circle. After Phil emerges from his burrow on February 2nd, he speaks to the Groundhog Club President in Groundhogese. His proclamation is then translated for the world. [Does the Inner Circle take applications? Do you get language training?]

 6.    The celebration of Groundhog Day began with the Germans, Pennsylvania’s earliest settlers. They brought with them the legend of Candlemas Day, which states “For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day, so far will the snow swirl in May….” The settlers found that groundhogs were plentiful and were the most intelligent and sensible animal to carry on the legend of Candlemas Day. [Clearly.]

 7.   Punxsutawney held its first Groundhog Day in the 1800s. The first official trek to Gobbler’s Knob was made on February 2nd, 1887. 2012 marked the 126th prediction.

 8.    So the story goes, Punxsutawney Phil was named after King Phillip. Prior to being called Phil, he was called Br’er Groundhog.

Not as simple as we all thought, 'eh?  I had thought it was pretty straightforward  -- shadow or no shadow -- but nope, it needs to be decided on by Mr. Br'er Groundhog in a language more intelligent and sensible than our own.  The newscaster was also a little unimpressed that Phil always predicts 6 more weeks of winter and the crowd always responds with a collective "Booo."  [After 126 years, though, what can be expected?]

Nothing says summer like outdoor adventures

Seriously, who's been interested in indoor sports like blogging? Not us. We've been busy

Attending beekeeping talks in West Philly:


(Did you know that harmful hive-mites get helplessly lost just a few inches away from the comb? The strategy is to overcome the problem by cross-breeding all species of bees to carry the mites outdoors and dump them.)

Enjoying birthday injera at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant:



Swimming in the Wissahickon with a friend:


Installing a green wall on Drexel's campus (guess which one of us did this):


Finding eggy evidence of happy vermicomposting worms:


Digging potatoes from the garden:


Making hot-weather suppers of delicious open-faced sandwiches and cold potato & bean salad:


Enjoying no less than 25 independent neighborhood fireworks shows from the roof of our house on the 4th:

(Why brave the crowds at the Art Museum when fireworks shows surround you?)

We've also been doing the usual berry picking, gardening, reading, cooking, and spending time with friends. And here's to more of the same.

What's a month-long silence between friends?

 

Those of you who still mosey over to our corner of the blogosphere have probably noticed that things have been a little quiet around here. We've been preoccupied with doing things like seeing each other in person (!), celebrating the holidays, and generally taking a break from our online life. Now that I'm headed back to Nashville tomorrow to start the spring semester, we figured we should reactivate our blog for the new year. 

 

And what better way to do so than with low-light, high-drama photos from Longwood Gardens? We canceled our pre-Christmas visit because of snow, so we actually just went on Thursday. Highly recommended.

 

 

 

  
More soon -- promise. 

A new puppy, NYC &Thanksgiving

Since Sharon is neck-deep in schoolwork before the end of the semester next Friday (yay!), I will highlight a few of our moments from last week when Sharon was here on Thanksgiving break.

Meet Trevi, (named after the fountain), my parents' new pup:

 
So, he's pretty cute. He's all puppy and everyone is excited about his arrival, especially Mason (his big brother), as seen here:

He looks thrilled that a new sharp-toothed pup is running around. Anyhow...

Sharon and I decided to take a trip to Manhattan a few days before Thanksgiving. New York is always busy, and when I went there with the arbo-interns I thought it would be fun to go back and spend a night, so we did. We took the Bolt Bus up (which was a mistake, as a MegaBus stopped at the same location to pick up passengers and seemed to be running like clockwork -- Bolt, on the other hand, was 30 minutes late and when it finally did the driver blamed a cleaning person that didn't clean the bus). Buses these days do have wifi and electric outlets and tons of leg room, so hooray for that; MegaBus, though, is a double- decker which is simply incredible.

So we got off the bus, rounded the block and stepped into our hotel, which was about 50 feet away. We dropped off our bags, checked out the room, and resisted the urge to revert back to our Haiti days whereupon entering a hotel room we would immediately turn on the TV and get hot showers and enjoy flush toilets. To sum up our trip, I can use two words: We walked. A lot. From midtown to the High Line in Chelsea to Chinatown and back up to the Upper East Side to check out a few thrift stores, a coffee shop, Macy's parade preparations, and ice skating rink where we watched folks skate (poorly) and some delicious hot cocoa. The next day we walked a lot (shocking, l know) and filled the day with similar activities. It was relaxing and fun -- and we did check out the American Folk Art Museum, which was amazing. See below:

And we went into a pretty cool old (for the U.S.) church, though I can't remember its name:

We hot-footed it around the city and tried to get into the International Center of Photography, but we got there too late to be admitted without being rushed around. Instead we went into the bookshop and browsed a little and warmed up a bit too. We'll have to go back next time we are in NYC.

We went from NYC to Norfolk (that's Naw-fick to you), where we had the usual abundance of food to show our thankfulness for an abundance of stuff the previous year. Lots of good food which we enjoyed again and again the days following Thanksgiving (it's worth all the effort of cooking to only have to reheat the following 2-3 days, right?).

Somewhere during all of this some wigs were discovered, so they made the rounds.

After the wig finished a tour of the Nowak household we assembled ourselves for the customary photo whenever people are together.

(Judging by the darkness in some of these images, the changes I've made in Picasa are not making their way into the wonder web. Well, imagine everything brighter and sharper.)

Happy birthday, America.

Along with a day in central PA, brunch with Bryan's family, a cookout, and an afternoon party with friends, we did manage to catch the fireworks at the Art Museum:

Folks started turning out around 6pm, but (predictably) we rolled in around 9 and staked out a space in the grass.

We snacked and listened to The Roots (hooray) while watching everyone light it up:

The Goo Goo Dolls (B-list year, I guess) played on and on, and finally someone just started shooting off their own fireworks:

Meanwhile, the police department found it necessary to circle...and circle...the crowd via helicopter:

 (Okay folks, calm down. The Fourth of July happens every year).

The actual fireworks ended up being late, low, and windblown. We went with everyone else to the middle of the road to catch the show:

I was fortunate enough to have today off and filled it with refinishing a thrift-score dresser, gardening, cooking, sewing, erranding -- and dealing with a flat tire.

(Stay tuned, internet, because we've got a nice round of blogposts coming up this week...)