Update

Well, I haven't been on here for a while! It's hard to think of things to post on here that I'm OK with the whole world reading (even though I think there are only like 2 people who actually read this).

This weekend, we're heading to Buffalo again to visit the fam. It should be fun. We're considering staying til Tuesday so we can actually see everyone, but that will depend on my work schedule. I have to check it out tomorrow.

My garden has been gorgeous, except for those cucumber plants that keep dying (my last two are on their way out - very sad). Damn cucumber beetles. But I've gotten lots of zucchinis and tomatoes, and a fair amount of banana peppers. Oh, and lots of basil. We made pesto. I don't know what to do with all of it.

We cleaned out our pantry this weekend. Wow. What a mess. We threw out a lot of the dried food, because we estimated that much of it had been there since 2002 or so. It's amazing how neat and tidy it is now. It looks better than our kitchen for once! There is something really satisfying about taking control of one of the rooms of your house. :)

It's hard to believe that it's really the last week of August. Part of this is because the weather has been beautifully June-like. I'm not going to complain about that. But I really want summer to last. The winter cold comes too quickly. Then again, I have much to be hopeful about this fall and winter, so maybe it'll all be good this year.

Anniversary

It's our 9-year anniversary today! It was a pretty uneventful day. We left work a little early, went to dinner at Legal Seafoods, and then sat out on our front porch and talked. It is cool today (in the 60's) and comfortable. Feels like fall, even though it's not. It was a nice day.

Some reflections: We were looking at one of our photo albums from the wedding. I was struck by the fact that a) it didn't seem that long ago, but it was; and b) several of the people in our photos are now gone. That made me feel old. You know, like looking at your parents', or even grandparents', wedding photos and they tell you about all the people in the photos that you never met because they died before you were born. Except that I knew all those people, some of them very well, and now they're gone too. It made me sad.

9 years ago right now, I think everyone was smoking cigars. Laurie was paying homage to the porcelain god, my mom was discovering that the caterer forgot to put out some Italian pastries that we had ordered. We had a nice wedding. I loved all of it. It was funny looking at the photos, because I noticed in a couple of the later photos that my mom was holding on to a large layer of a cake. And seriously, I didn't think any cake was left over. Jim and I hardly got a piece (except for the piece that Jim shoved up my nose - ha!). I wonder who ate the rest of the cake.

We always take a photograph of ourselves together every year on our anniversary, and then I put each photo in a special book. It's fun to flip through it. Here's the photo from this year:

Ha! Actually that's the silly photo. Here's one where you can see Jim's face better:

I don't know which I will put in the photobook yet. :) Not great resolution on these photos. My digital camera became a "stowaway" in my mother's backpack when she went back to Buffalo from her trip to Boston. So I have to pick it up next time I'm in town. In the meantime, we're using the little camera on my cell phone.

Not much else to report tonight.

Presidential Election

I've become pretty unhappy with both of our selections for president this year. It makes me wonder if it's possible to have a presidential candidate that inspires you. Has that ever happened?

Here are the problems:

John McCain. I hate his stance on Guantanamo and on the war. While I think it would be irresponsible to pull out of Iraq all at once, he seems to want to stay there forever. He likes tax cuts, while I believe that the government has to tax in order to provide services, especially services to people in need. While he used to be champion for sorely-needed bipartisan immigration reform, he seems to only be talking about immigration enforcement now. It seems like he is pandering to the far right.

Barack Obama: He has very little experience. He basically started running for president as soon as he became a U.S. Senator. When he gave that inspiring speech at the '04 Democratic National Convention, he hadn't even been elected yet. So I think it's unfair when he attacks other people for their stand on certain issues, when he wasn't even in Congress to take a stand on most issues. Reports show that while in Congress, he has always toted the party line, and has never had an opinion about an issue that was different from the Democratic Party establishment's. He keeps talking about "change" but does not give specifics and does not have a history of making change. It is unclear where he stands on most issues, and his stands on some issues don't make any sense. For example, Jim heard an interview with him on NPR regarding the issue of instituting a "windfall tax" against the gas companies. The interviewer told him that basically every economist has said that a windfall tax was a very bad idea. He agreed that it was a bad idea, but said that it wasn't fair that the gas companies were making all that money and that's why he supported the tax. WTF?

He appears to be telling people that they should vote for him because he doesn't look like the guy on the 5 dollar bill. It seems to me that the ONLY reason he should get my vote is if he convinces me HOW he is going to change the current situation in the U.S. I need to know what he is going to do about Afghanistan, which now has more deaths than Iraq. How is he going to close Guantanamo? What does he propose doing with the prisoners, especially when their countries won't take them back? Does he agree that the Geneva Conventions should apply to all prisoners of war, regardless of whether they represent a particular country or a guerrilla group? What does he think of "The War on Terror"? Can we have an indefinite war on an idea? What will he do to gain credibility back for the U.S. in Europe and beyond? What is his stance on immigration? How will he work with Congress to get it done for once?

I don't like John McCain's answers on these issues, but I don't feel like I'm getting any answers from Barack Obama. I worry that people like him mostly because he's an amazing public speaker (which he is) who seems young and vibrant and idealistic where McCain looks old and jaded. The problem is, I think McCain is qualified for the job. I don't think Obama is.

People liked what they saw with George W. Bush too. A plain speaker. Someone like them. The problem was that he also was not qualified to be president. He picked sycophants for his cabinet instead of people who challenged him or gave him different points of view. The people who did challenge him (ie: Colin Powell) were forced out. I worry that Obama is sounding more and more like that, and that worries me a lot. At least McCain is able to think for himself and do what he thinks is right, based on reasoning and listening to advisors. He has a proven record of doing that. Obama has no record or history of that.

Will I vote for McCain? I don't think so. But I don't know that I can vote for Obama either. I guess we'll have to see how the debates go.

Various and sundry topics

Nothing too exciting going on over here. Or at least that I can put in a blog post. Here are some highlights of the last couple of weeks:

1) My cucumber plants are infested with cucumber beetles, which make them die unexpectedly. I've had to pull out 3 of my plants, which of course were full of beautiful yellow flowers and baby cucumbers. This made me so upset that I had a dream about cucumbers and bugs last night.

2) My mom came to visit. We went to Houghton's Pond for the first time ever and went swimming! Also we went to the MFA, which was disappointing because most of the Impressionist wing was in storage because of renovations to the building.

3) The contractor finally finished the spindles on our stairs. So our big home improvement project for the year is completed ... well, except that we have to give the walls one more good coat of paint. For some reason, the paint already chipped in one spot. It's kind of odd. Anyway, it looks great.

4) And speaking of home improvement, I have officially filled up our first scrapbook of home improvement photos, receipts, etc. 8 years of stuff. We are so glad we are keeping a book because it actually makes us feel like we're making progress.

5) We have new neighbors across the street in the house that was on the market for a long time (Rita and Ray's old house, for those of you who know our street). There are lots of young couples with kids on our street now. It's really nice. I sort of hope that our street will be similar to my street when I was growing up. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood and we almost always had someone to play with.

We're looking forward to the weekend ... no plans! Yippy.

By the way, for those of you familiar with the Shaw Festival, is there anything good playing up there this year? We might go over Labor Day weekend.

Mountain climbing and reunions

This weekend I climbed two Adirondack mountains and attended JK^2's 10-year college reunion. It was a lot of fun! We went with our friends Nate and Jess.

We left Boston Thursday afternoon and got to Keene Valley before dinner. We were staying at a very restful, red cottage with an old upright piano. I played a little Scott Joplin and then we headed to dinner at the Noon Mark Diner. This is a little restaurant that sells fabulous pie. Also, when I first moved to Boston and JK^2 was still in college, I used to drive up after work and meet him in the parking lot at the Noon Mark Diner. We would then continue the drive up to Clarkson. So it has sentimental meaning. The food there isn't fabulous, but their pie is. I had strawberry rhubarb and Jim had raspberry rhubarb.

We then went back to the cottage and played a game called San Juan. It was fun. After that, it was time for bed.

The next day, we got a few groceries at a little store, and then started our hike up Cascade Mountain, one of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. JK^2 and Nate are trying to climb all 46 of them, and they have done 16 so far. They already hiked Cascade once, but it's an easy hike and good for beginners (like me). It is about 2.5 miles each way. The hike was pretty hard and I'm not in fabulous shape, but I got into a groove after a while and it was OK. The weather was cool and cloudy.

We got to the top of Cascade around 12:30. Here's me at the summit:


Here are Nate, JK^2, and Jess:



You'll note that we're all wearing rain gear. It started raining just as we were getting to the top, and it completely clouded over. We couldn't see a THING from the top. Ugh. It was really disappointing!

After that, we hiked down to a place where we wouldn't get wet and ate our lunch - bread, cheese and trail mix. There was another High Peak nearby, called Porter. It was just another 20 minutes to that peak, so JK^2 talked me into doing that one too. :) I was feeling OK and thought that since I had already hiked up there, I might as well do the other peak. Jim said it would take us another 4 hours, because we would hike down the other side of Porter, but I didn't quite believe him, I think. He also said that it wouldn't be as hard because it was downhill and not so steep. Nate and Jess decided to not continue on (smart move). They went back to the car, and agreed to meet us at the other side of Porter with the car.

Then JK^2 and I did Porter and the view was better, because by then it had stopped raining.



Then we started the 4 mile hike back to the "Garden" which is some old lady's garden that she donated to the Adirondack Mountain Club and is now a parking lot at the end of several of the High Peak trails. Well that hike was crazy. First, it seemed like no one had been on our trail in quite some time. It was a bushwhack for about 2 miles. Parts of the trail were covered in water-logged ferns, which made our pants look like we had just taken a shower with our clothes on. There were rocks we couldn't see until after we had tripped over them. It was nuts. We got to Little Porter, which is sort of a look-out point on Porter with a view. We stopped there for a little while to take a break, and then hiked on. The rest of the trail was much better.

On the way, we saw what I think are trillium and orchids:


At the end of the trail was a bridge over Johns Brook, and then we were done. We were both in a lot of pain!! I'm still sore now. Plus, a bug seemed to take a liking to the back of my neck. I had a whole slew of bites back there.

Nate and Jess picked us up from the parking lot and took us back to the cottage for showers. We went to Lake Placid for dinner, and went to the Noon Mark Diner again for pie. (I had raspberry-peach-cheese pie). Then we played another game, Citadel, that night at the cottage before bed. We didn't like Citadel as much as we liked San Juan.

The next morning, we got up (miraculously) and drove to Clarkson for the reunion. We stayed in the dorms on Saturday night, which was interesting. How did we sleep on those beds for 4 years? I could feel the springs in my back! I must be getting old or something. Some highlights from the reunion:

Going to a "Chemistry Magic Show" in which one of the exhibits was Dr. Jim Peplowski (JK^2's freshman chemistry teacher) with a nerf gun, shooting fire out of it:


Going to the WCKN dinner, followed by a viewing of "Casual News 1998," produced by Nate. Jim and Nate had to clean the head of the VTR machine before playing it:


Then we watched the excruciating hour of Casual News. We didn't realize how bad it really was. :) The only redeeming part of it was Dave's "I'm just an old woman" sketch, which was just as goofy as it was in 1998.

Today, we had breakfast at Cheel (the student union) and then hit the road. We took the ferry from Plattsburg, NY to South Hero, VT:


Then we met Dave and Sandra for lunch in Burlington. Their new house is really coming along! And Burlington is a really neat city, especially when it doesn't have as much snow as the last time we saw it. We got home around 6:30pm. New Hampshire always seems bigger than it looks on the map.

A fun weekend! Although I felt old going to a 10-year college reunion, it was a nice excuse to get away for the weekend. We got to be outside, we got a lot of exercise, and we got to hang out with Nate and Jess. Wish we could do it more often.

Some random thoughts

Tomorrow we leave for Buffalo for the weekend. I think we're going to leave Boston around 1pm, which will hopefully get us out of town before the rush-hour traffic and Cape traffic clogs up all the roads. We're driving my mom's van this time, since we have to drop it back off with my mom. Then we fly out of Buffalo on Sunday evening.

Our trips to Buffalo are always such whirlwind events. It's this bizarre thing where you get to see everyone, but don't actually get to visit with anyone or get caught up. Most of the time we're worried about whether we're spending equal time with each family, and it never seems to even out quite right. People always say that we're lucky that we have both families in the same place, and they're right, we are lucky ... in a way. But it seems like people who have families in different cities at least get substantial visiting time with that part of the family when they do go into town, even if it's less frequent.

We've had some amazing thunderstorms over the past couple of weeks. They usually happen while I'm at work. I'll glance out the window, and suddenly it's as dark as night and the trees in the little square across from my office are swaying in the wind. Then you hear the crack of thunder, and suddenly, the rain is pouring from the sky. There is an old building across the square with an old, green copper roof. You can just see the water pouring off of it, like a water fall. It's quite amazing. I don't remember ever really getting this kind of weather here in Boston.

I'm always happy that I'm inside - it is not fun to be caught outside in this kind of storm. That happened to me about a week ago. Horizontal rain as you're walking to the T is not much fun. It looked like someone had poured a bucket of water over my head. The other people in the T, who had been underground for the last 10 minutes, were giving me funny looks because they didn't realize that it was raining outside!

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Wish we could leave now and start it sooner.

Gratuitous Flower Photos

Today was a perfect day for planting, since it was cool, overcast, with a chance of rain later. JK^2 and I have been planning to redo our front flowerbeds for a while, so today was the day to get a start on it. We pulled out a sickly azalea to the left of our front stairs, and replaced it with a lace cap hydrangea, a variety called "Blue Bird." Here's how it looks:

And if you click on this link, you'll see what it will look like when it blooms. It should be great. Our goal was to give it a lot of space to spread out. We didn't do that with our other hydrangea, and now it has outgrown its space:

(And this is after I cut it back all the way to the ground a year ago). We are going to dig it up and move it out next spring. With the new hydrangea, we have a lot of excess space, so we planted impatiens and marigolds, and then put a good layer of mulch over the top.

And while I'm at it, I thought I would throw in a couple of other photos of my beautiful flowers. Here is a close up of the blooms on my other hydrangea bush:


And here is a closeup of a gerbera daisy I have growing in a pot on our front stairs.

And my tomato plants have flowers. So everything is right in the world. :)