Tis the season for road trippin'

Last week we headed to the great white north, braving the frigid rain and downright cold climes of Boston for a birthday party. We packed up a our new little car and prayed that the EZPass would work smoothly on its inaugural voyage and that the car would not decide to surprise with anything (mostly breaking down). I freelanced on Saturday, so we headed out as soon as I got home/ cleaned up, around 4pm or so.

I-95 led us straight into the remnants of NYC rush hour (yes, on Saturday). We sat in traffic for about an hour until we reached the toll booth, where we zipped through with our properly functioning EZPass transponder. It was smooth sailing for a few more hours until the wintry skies opened and dumped torrents of icy rain upon us. We had the customary response to such weather: put the wipers on high speed, lean forward to the windshield, turn the radio off, and follow the tail lights of the car in front of you with 100% confidence that that driver knows where the road is. (She/he did.) We arrived in Bostonia a little after ten and slid into party mode. Good times -- and happy birthday, Maria!

On Sunday we set our sights on getting to know Mary Baker Eddy. She was the founder -- nay, discover -- of Christian Science. Yeah, not Scientology, but it's equally as fascinating. We went to the MBE Library which, along with a Hall of Ideas, houses a really big walk-in inverted stained glass globe that depicts the world as it was in 1935. See below for stock photography of the place because they don't allow mortals to take photos:


Amazing, yes? As you can see, it's pretty big and there is indeed a catwalk through the middle of it. A tour guide led us through this in a group of about 30 and instructed us to be quiet as the slightest sounds can be heard very easily. So, of course when you hear instructions like that you immediately look around for....children. And there he was, about 2 years old. The guide spoke quietly, and sure enough, we heard everything with great clarity: his voice, shuffling of feet, nervous rustling of paper, and oh yes -- "shriek! shriek! shriek! ha ha ha ha ha." A good time was had by all.

At the end the guide let us talk amongst ourselves while we looked around, and I felt like Bruce Almighty when all of a sudden Jim Carrey can hear the prayers of every person in the world all at once. Yes, 30 or so voices all sounding as if they are speaking directly into your ear...plus "shriek!"

Luckily the drive back to our balmy southern home was quick and uneventful, with mostly clear sailing home.

This weekend (aka tomorrow) we head further south to visit some folks we met in an airport in Miami about three years ago. Somehow this couple exceeds all standards of awesomeness and we're super stoked to spend some time with them. We had high hopes of visiting for 1 or 2 weeks and now it has been whittled down to one skimpy little weekend (dangit work, sometimes we hatecha!) but we'll take what we can get. Ben and Alexis, be prepared for a sleep-deprived coffee-fueled good time weekend. Waxhaw or bust!

Flora and fauna

At long last, I'm home in Philadelphia! Friends, neighborhood hangout spots, the sideyard garden, sensible public transit,* and -- most importantly -- my favorite husband ever all point to good summer times a-comin'. 

Before I left Nashville, though, I found time for a weekend adventure with my friend Carrie, an up-and-coming docent at the Nashville Zoo (and an all-around all-star to boot). She has beautifully blogged about our escapade here, so click through and read that. Go ahead, I'll wait.



All done? Here are a few other photos from the zoo day:

 (I was fascinated by these life-sized statues of donors to the zoo that occasionally appeared in different settings. Just...wow.)


The day after the zoo trip, I got to hear Nicaraguan revolutionary, priest, and poet Father Ernesto Cardenal read from his new collection of poetry entitled The Origin of Species. He calls this "science poetry," and I was moved by it. Click here to check out a reading he did a few days before he came to Nashville -- from what I can tell it's similar to the presentation he gave at Vanderbilt. 


Then Saturday, I biked down to South Philly to find the Wild Foodies, a Meetup group for foragers of wild edibles. We mucked around near the pond in FDR Park and I got to sample curly dock, burdock, mulberry leaves, and garlic mustard, among other delectables. I've been wanting to learn about foraging in these here parts for quite a while, but I figured it was in my better interest to go with people who know what they're doing. 

 Lesson one: check. Now on to finishing our garden for the year.

* I know, I just wrote that about SEPTA! This should tell you more about Nashville's system than anything else could. 

Kids in sweaters

I went to the PA Farm Show this past week and it was amazing. As proof, I submit the following:

Yes indeed, that is a THOUSAND POUNDS OF BUTTER! This is definitely the most action I've seen from dairy products in quite a while.

Q. What's better than watching the very cool (okay, and slightly gross) process of chicks hatching?

A. Watching duckings swim and slide! (As long as you were lucky enough to catch one of their performances, of course.)

Is this a reindeer? If so, is this what usually happens to them in the off season?

Aaaaw, angora rabbit!

Even more aaaaaaww: super-cute alpacas! (Do you think the neighbors would notice if we kept a few of these in the sideyard?)

Lest you think the farm show is all cute animals and food sculptures, this is what it mostly looks like:

That's a crazy amount of people, but I guess PA is 90% rural and 10% Philadelphia (okay, hi Pittsburgh), so it's no wonder there were thousands of people there.

Back to the cute animals:

Cutest. things. ever.

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.)

Winston interlude

Despite no-fun November (papers and projects, anyone?), I was able to sneak away to North Carolina last weekend: one of my housemates was going to visit family and was looking for someone to help with the driving, so I signed up for a change of scenery.  It was relaxing and fun -- between the fall colors, silly talks, live music, thrift scores, yummy food, friendly dogs, and amazingly warm hospitality, a good time was had by all.