Busy Summer

Two weeks ago, on Wednesday, Mom came into Town.  Well, actually, that's Boston. She's much closer than 3,000 miles away. So the following Saturday, Cyndi (God bless her!) and I journeyed to Beantown to see Mom and bring some essential groceries.

The Friday before, after work, I wandered around the supermarket trying to think of heavy food items that Mom would have difficulty carrying on foot. I must have looked really perplexed because a supermarket employee asked if he could help me find something.

So what are necessities? Well, crackers and cheese of course -- to go with a glass of wine.  I got watermelon and cantaloupe (and divested them of their rinds so that Mom wouldn't have smelly trash).  There was other stuff including salad makings and some peanut butter.

We had a lovely lunch with Mom and then headed to the New England Aquarium.  It was very hot so I drove and we parked there. The line was HUGE -- probably about a 50 minute wait to get tickets.  Luckily, some young Aquarium employee spotted Mom while she was keeping our spot in line Cyndi and I were looking at the outdoor seals. 

And the nice man ushered us to the front of the line.  He even offered Mom a wheelchair and it's a good thing she didn't take one because it was so crowded, we would have had to use it as a battering ram!  The pictures are not good, but they give you an idea of what we saw.

This guy loved to swim upside down. He was too fast for me to get his whole body.

 These are the first penguins you see as you enter the building.  The crafty little so and so's would get their fish, hop into the water and get back in line on the rock.  The guy with the clip board is checking off who got a fish. (They all had different colored ear bands.)

Needless to say, this is the "habah" outside of the Aquarium.

  

These are different penguins. I seem to remember at least three different types in different areas.

The darn fish kept moving ...

Yup, more penguins. They were all very cute.

Not sure I'd care to eat him. I wonder if that's what he was thinking.

 I thought these two were quite handsome.

This is Myrtle the Turtle.  Her favorite treat is romaine lettuce. She can grow to be over 500 pounds.

We were admiring the roof garden and the window boxes.

We also tried to guess how many millions of dollars these condos cost.

After getting thoroughly hot and tired bucking huge crowds, we walked next door and had yummy seafood at Legal Seafoods. It was wicked busy but we got to sit at their oyster bar and watch the wait staff scurry around carrying enormous weights of plates filled with food.  

Then it was back to Mom's cute apartment where we met up with Deb and Paul.  After some nice chit chat, it was back to Amherst where you don't have to pay $39 for one day's parking! 

It's also a lot quieter here. For that I am thankful.

Last Friday, Cyndi and I went to Worcester and had supper with Emily.  Cyndi got to meet not only Emily, but her three cats as well. Yesterday Emily told me she is fostering a pregnant cat. I wonder how many kittens will arrive.

I can't even begin to remember what night we made the pasta primavera (above).  The goat cheese was Cyndi's idea and it was really yummy! Thank you, Phyllis for the zucchini! And I was able to add marinated red peppers because Cyndi got the jar open for me. I'm pretty sure I loosened it because I had already run it under hot water and cold water, banged it on the counter, used a rubber thingy to try to turn it, and I swore a lot.  The swearing usually does it. I must be out of practice.

Speaking of which: we have an owl shaped (of course) swear jar in the office.  Being particularly parsimonious, I have drastically reduced my potty mouth.  Although Lisa was amused the day that I preemptively added 4 quarters before venting. (It's a quarter a swear although we still have to formalize the policy.  Should mf'er be two quarters?)

After my swim tonight, I got into the hot tub. As I was getting out, I swung my legs over the side and twisted my butt.  Looking down, I saw this giant red spot on my leg.  In the locker room, I looked at it and it seemed to be a bug bite -- but the red area was/is about four inches around.  Ugh.  Then I pick up my tee shirt -- and there's a tick on it!! It was a dog tick, but its belly was not full.  So I'm mystified as to the thing on my leg.  I put alcohol on it and then bacitracin.  Come to think of it, I should put alcohol IN me.  It hurts like a sumbitch.  If it's not better by tomorrow, they won't let me swim.  I don't really want to do a treadmill ... sigh.

It's bed time for Bonzo.  Ta ta!

SALSA

What do you do when you wake up at 5 a.m.?  You make salsa, of course!  It really is yummy and I'll bring some for lunch.  I winged it, so I will try to re-create the ingredients.

1 nectarine

1/3 seeded jalapeno pepper (go slowly, tasting)

1/2 large sweet red pepper

lemon juice, lime juice from a fresh lime

1/3 red onion

4 or 5 strawberries

Chop the nectarine, douse with lemon juice to prevent browning. Chop everything else, add lime juice and stir. Refrigerate. Enjoy.

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So I went to the Mass. State House on Friday.

This is the formal reception room for the President of the Senate, Senator Stan Rosenberg who lives in Amherst.

And this is the rehearsal for the Change of Command Ceremony (Capt. Zhu is on the right).

The ceremony was held in the Army Nurses' Room of the State House

Here is a view looking down at the visitors' chairs (left) before the ceremony.

I was humbled to be asked to be Yaoyao's "American Mother" at her Change of Command ceremony in Boston. (Her mother is still in China, taking care of grandparents.) I seem to have left the program in the car, but Capt. Yaoyao Zhu is now the Commander of the Boston Medical Recruiting station for the Army.  Capt. Foldereauer (I hope I got the spelling correct) brought the site up from the bottom to number 4 in recruiting numbers! This recruiting area extends from Maine to W. Virginia and there are many Soldiers involved. Their goal is to get the best medical personnel for the Army

Yaoyao and I have corresponded for a number of years, having "met" online through a mutual friend. Since she is the age of my oldest daughter, Deb, at one point I asked if she minded if I gave her a little advice.  We have been friends ever since.

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On Saturday, Cyndi and I went to the Clark Museum in Williamstown.  No, no pictures. If you can believe it, I did not have either my camera or my cell phone with me.

It was a lovely drive on a hot day -- thank goodness for the car's air conditioning! The GPS took us on a particularly scenic route getting there.  When we left, we went MY way which was the Mohawk Trail (Route 2) all the way. I think Cyndi enjoyed her first encounter with the hairpin turn on the Trail.

When we approached the Museum, we were amazed to see parked cars lining the street. As we were leaving, I asked if they knew how many people had visited.  As of 2 p.m., 1500 visitors has entered. The Museum remained open until 5 p.m.

Most people were there to see the Van Gogh exhibit. Also, Whistler's Mother.  She was in a totally different building and we ran out of time to get there, so we will have to go another time.

Van Gogh is not my favorite (Monet is), but I learned a lot because I rented the audio description ipad.  I like those because they give you a lot more information than what is on the descriptive label.

I did especially enjoy the room where one wall is Monet (with a couple of Pisarros thrown in), and the opposite wall is Renoir.  What a contrast in colors! Renoir of the dark, lush colors and Monet with his delicate blurry pastels.

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Thursday night, I was delighted to have dinner with Debbie and her friend, Sarah.  We went to a Japanese barbecue restaurant which was yummy!  We gobbled up many plates of food -- which we cooked ourselves on a gas brazier.

Since we were in a partying mood, we got dessert too. 

Sarah said I probably should have taken the picture BEFORE we ate most of it ... the green tea cake is on the left and the green tea ice cream is on the right.  The cake was amazingly light and many thin layers. We also had what they called a banana fritter, but it was much better than a fritter.  It was a thin piece of fried dough with a banana and banana cream inside.  Yummy!

After dinner, I went to my airbnb in the Galleria Apartments at Longwood.  It was lovely -- clean and quiet.  My host is an accomplished cardiologist from Belize who provided erudite conversation.

After Yaoyao's ceremony on Friday, Deb took me to lunch and showed me her office which was close by.  I had a very exciting end to my vacation!

And now it's 7 a.m. when I usually get up -- and time to go to work.  Ciao!

President of the Jones Library Trustees

https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/news/news_releases/2015/07-2015/node/609914

He runs a great meeting too.

Coming Home!

Emily, bless her, decided to drive the whole way yesterday. I had heard about taking the Lewes Ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey.  We were told that we did not make it in time and would have to wait one and a half hours, but apparently, two people did not show up.  We were the second to last on the boat!

Here's the ferry building. We were first car in slot number 10.

Leaving

Underway

Yes, it was windy, but it was wonderful and a contrast to the 89 F. on land

Other ferry coming back

 I convinced Emily to drive along the shore at Cape May. It is decidedly not tacky compared to some shores I've seen. There were lots of people enjoying the ocean.

The water is on the right in these pictures. I wonder what the vacation rental is?

Neat parking meters

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Oops! I almost forgot.  I love big bridges and we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge (New York) last night.  Yeah, it's mostly an art photo ...

Cape Charles Adventure

Thursday on the road.  We go to Silver Spring, MD and have a nice Thai dinner with David and Jane who are hosting us in Cape Charles.  We stay at a nice in town hotel and leave Friday morning (in the rain).

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Cape Charles is 4 hours south of Washington, DC.  I loved rubbernecking as Emily drove.  The bridge below is one of my favorites in Virginia.

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Is this beach nice or what? They dredged sand out of one side of the pier and put it onto the beach so that it is now twice the size of the beach of two years ago.  It was warm, but breezy.

Emily willing a fish onto her line. (It didn't work.)

Yeah, there's me on the left with my trusty walker.  It was a big help, especially carrying fishing gear.

Jane nicely cornered the crab that I caught using her sandal.  Actually, I didn't catch him -- he just hung onto the fishing line  See, Cyndi, their legs really are blue!  We let him scuttle off the pier to eat someone else's bait.

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David bought the 3/4 bushel of crabs that you see above for $90. Can you imagine? Apparently, the catch has not been great, so the price is up.  (Of course, the Fourth of July weekend might have also upped the price.)

This is the first batch of crabs that David boiled (with Old Bay seasoning, of course).  There was one more coming.

Mom asked if we had eaten all of those crabs and we did, except for about a half dozen.  They are a lot of work and we sometimes resorted to using the hammers (see: mallet on the right) resulting in all of us being covered in crab bits and juice from head to toe.

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Sitting on their front porch at night is great. They are on a little divided parkway type of street.  The divider is grass and trees and it's one way on one side.  So everybody drives slowly and lots of people walk by.

I had brought whirligigs that have LED lights. Some white, some red, some blue.  You used an elastic to launch it and then it would helicopter down with the lights sparkling in the night.  We all had a ridiculous amount of fun with no booze, no noise (except laughter), and no injuries.  Ooops, I stand corrected.  Alex hurt his thumb with a snap of the rubber band.

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 So here we are on our Girls Only Shopping Trip while Kylie, Alex, and David were out on the boat.  We accosted some other ladies and asked them to take our picture.  In chatting, we found out that they were from Bristol, Connecticut -- where Maria is from! It's truly a small world. 

Tina, Emily, Emma, Jane, and Maria in front of the mermaid

During that fishing trip, Kylie caught a croaker which she ate as a fish taco for supper.  Alex made venison tacos for the rest of us. (The venison was in the freezer and it was from the deer Alex had shot during the last hunting season.) The tacos were great especially followed by Jane's rhubarb dump cake.

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You will have to excuse my lousy fireworks pictures. But I was so happy because Joy drove us to the beach in her highly decorated golf cart. We got to watch the fireworks in seated comfort.

The fireworks were spectacular and not too loud.  Angus the (old) dog watched for a while as if he were watching TV. Then he began to people watch. Audrey the year old black lab pup was not amused with the fireworks, so David had to carry her like a 4 foot long baby.  Just as I thought we had seen the grand finale, the fireworks started up again.  I think maybe they had missed a box and figured they had better use them up.

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Today, Sunday, David and Alex left early and went fishing. They caught blue fish and whiting (called round heads locally). David fried up the mess of fish after Maria dusted them with corn meal fish fry. Yum oh yum!

My plate from the left: cooked kale with garlic and mushrooms, cucumber salad, butter beans with mini potatoes and sweet sausage, store bought potato salad. Of course, the fish is the star in the middle.

I went too far back on my pictures, but I thought we could all admire the pitcher plant again!

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Alex and Emma have headed home (Sunday), taking their pup, Titus, with them.  Titus is in love with Audrey and when the two play-fight, he lets her win.  He throws himself down letting her 'chomp' him on the throat.  They are both purebred black labs and gorgeous, but they are too rambunctious for me!

Em's napping and the rest have walked down to the beach.  Me too now.  Ciao.