Newport Days 1 and 2

HD and I took the Manlac on yet another road trip, this time to Newport, Rhode Island. We managed to travel the 200 miles in seven hours, yet only used up 1/2 a tank of gas. We finally arrived in Newport, known for it's mansions, waterways, quaintness and vast amounts of sea creatures, that would all be eventually consumed by HD, on Friday night. We enjoyed HD's friend's hospitality, with each of us getting our own room, and HD's brother, wife and 1 1/2 year old daughter getting the last. She caused the epiphany that maybe kids aren't a route I want to travel for a while. They cry all the time, wake you up in the middle of the night or at ridiculously early hours, can't feed themselves, force you to be selfless, and then grow up to hate you. Being woken up at 7 AM by the sound of Naomi counting stairs, but only getting up to 3 before starting over again, can make a man grumpy. What makes a man even grumpier is when her dad and HD both join in, and HD needs to be encouraged to get past 3 as well.

Between eating breakfast Saturday morning and driving back late Sunday night, many things happened. We ate lunch and dinner a couple times, and some ice cream. Some non-meal related things happened to. It was a beautiful, restful, enjoyable weekend, and I took many photos to share with my reader, Mom.
Everyone in Newport was really friendly. Some lady tried to lend us her mopeds, rent us a house, and get us to ride her elephant slide before letting us know where we could watch kids take a long jump off a short pier. Jellyfish and motor oil, ho!

Who wouldn't buy lemonade from this trustworthy looking beagle?

Though she looks sweet, she's plotting her next counting adventure

Shot of a herd of red seaweed digesting their meals of plovers

There is no retouching to see here. Only an incredible Adonis of a man. And no old woman laughed at me while this picture was taken.

HD 1, Water O

Click here for Day 3
For a different take on what happened, check HD's page
To see more photos, click here or here.

Yo dawg! I know how much you love batteries

Yo dawg! I know how much you love alkaline batteries, so I put your alkaline batteries in your rechargeable battery charger so you could have extra time with your batteries!

First, I was told my method of using and recharging rechargeable batteries was horrible and lowered the batteries life expectancy. Whenever the batteries for my Xbox 360 controller died, I would plug them in, wait 5 minutes, then take them out and keep playing while I put the other pair in. Once the current ones died, I'd switch them out for the 10 minute charged batteries, etc.

Now I'm being told by HD to just not touch any of the batteries, as I've managed to possibly ruin one of the chargers. Lesson learned.

Just Not Very Good

Royal Pains, a show which was promoted NONSTOP by USA, had it's season finale tonight, which no one should really care about. However, the news that it won't be returning until next summer distressed me. Not because the season ended on a cliff hanger and I want to find out what's going to happen (which I would care even less about 10 months from now than I currently do) but because it means 10 months without the scrumptious Jill Flint, who's replaced Evangeline Lilly as current natural beauty I'm infatuated with. Until Lost comes back on the air, at least.

What's a Strawberry?

Stealing a link from HD's new blog post, I checked out the definition of "strawberry" at urban dictionary dot com, and found out that it was a fruit, with seeds. And it's red. I was shocked. What really got me though was I could get a mug made with the definition and example sentence on it. With ease, I mean. Like, there's actually a link right next to the definition, "get this def. on a mug," imploring and seducing me to do so. As if the first thing I would think of when reading below is "Man, I'd really love to see this every morning with my OJ and/or tea. Thank God for the link to a mug!"

"WTF everyone it's a damn fruit. Person: Damnit I love strawberries so frickin' much they're red and have seeds and stuff yum"

Garden

French Brocade marigolds

Seeing chocolate mint bloom for the first time

I love watching my brandywine tomatoes ripen...

Blackberries, too

My first raised bed, built by me (not Fisher Price)

Leeks, beets, carrots, etc.

BOUNTY! Clockwise, from top: green zebra, sungold cherry tomatoes, costaluto genovese

Kewhan Fashion Shoot

On Saturday, along with plucky and able sidekick HD, I did my first fashion-y shoot of Kewhan, a model I met off craigslist. Contrary to what my mother has told me about craigslist, and in fact all websites, there was no scam involved, I wasn't murdered, and no one stole my social security number. I did get some nice shots though, and Kewhan was great to work with. HD performed admirably as my lighting director as well, wielding the reflector with grace, precision and an artistic flair.

Beantown Buffoonery

I decided to join in with the huddled masses and take a Greyhound bus from Penn Station to Boston, since I haven't felt like a poor college kid with no other transportation options nor been annoyed/wished my nose wouldn't work in quite a while. Luckily I got to sit within earshot of the one girl on the bus who wouldn't shut up. Ever. I don't think she was friends with or even knew the girl next to her, yet that didn't stop her from talking about guys who didn't want to date her, her favorite areas to run, or her favorite topics to talk about. She gave advice, inquired about inquiries and mentioned 25 places she had lived for 3 years or more each. Despite looking mid-20s, she was apparently 80 or older. Normally I'd be fascinated with her Wolverine-like powers, but she was the most obnoxious person on the bus, even speaking with a fake British accent the entire time. For what reason? Who was she trying to impress on the bus?

Everything was made better when my bus finally docked in South Station and a car driven by a yellow labrador named Sahara showed up to pick me up. She was so excited to see me that the next day, at the ungodly hour of 7 something, she evolved opposable thumbs in order to open the door to my guest room and wack everything in sight with her billy-club/tail. At least, that's what must have happened since Chris denied her involvement in this plot. Chris is my old neighbor from Ithaca College and now lives in Chelsea, north of Boston. Along with her limey husband/butler, she is the largest landowner in all of Massachusetts, with four properties in the area, all completely gut renovated and beautiful. After purchasing and moving into the 4th location, Chris and Simon plan to eventually move to Seattle, Washington, where they will make a land grab to rival the Louisiana Purchase.

In between ducking her racist septuagenarian bi-polar neighbor who threatened (promised, really) to knock out Simon and catching a death trap bus with a driver who cursed non stop, spoke to himself, thought the rumble strips were a bus-only lane and tried to sideswipe cars in NYC, I had time to pick raspberries, watch old men in tie-dye shirts hold dance competitions at the Beach Boys concert, travel to Johnny Cupcakes and Harpoon Brewery with Mario and lobster bake.

Dedication to fetching; Sahara the big yellow dog

Sheep eating their natural diet of watermelon and pineapple

I wear my Johnny Cupcakes kangaroo shirt while Mario wears the only Karlos Dansby shirt ever made

Amherst Addendum

The trip to Amherst also taught me a very valuable lesson. Pecan pie isn't as yuck as I thought it was. This means there's not a single pie I don't like. Bakeries, beware.

Amherst Action

Human Dynamo and DJ were chauffeured by me in the manlac Prius to Amherst to visit James (their high school friend and mine since 1st grade) and Laura, his wife, this past weekend. Highlights of the weekend included HD using his pirate strength to hammer softballs over the fence at Smith College, venison burger bbq, ice cream at Herrell's, a night of Redneck Life, and blueberry picking, where Laura demonstrated her migrant worker abilities, picking 10 lbs of blueberries in the time it took me to pick less than half. That's ok though; since HD and I are roomies again, we walked away with over 10 lbs together. Due to the fact that we both love blueberries, we decided to put blueberries in our blueberries so we could eat blueberries while we ate blueberries and eventually converted those 10 lbs into blueberry crisp, blueberry lavender ice cream, blueberry lime salsa, blueberry papaya muffins and blue blueberry blueberries. Surprisingly, we didn't get sick of them. Blueberries, like me, are quite versatile and unbelievably delicious. Oh, also, it was great to see Laura and James.

HD steps up to bat; getting attacked by his own glove



Matt realizes spending hours in the sun without sunscreen is a bad idea; I got the St. Ides "gamepiece"

Playing Redneck Life; Laura showing off her picking skills

James, the blueberry monk of Amherst, with his preciouses; HD has James' shirt

Bountiful bounties

We Like You Very Much, Come Work For Us

I'm not sure if everyone has heard, but apparently we're in some type of recession or bad economy currently. I figured this out on my own after seeing just about no jobs to apply to, and getting rejected by all the ones I did. So I did what any photographer struggling to get by would do, and sold my soul to work for a children's portraiture studio. Irvin Simon, a well-known school portrait company that had taken my camp photos as a youth, was looking to hire photographers. Job requirements included knowing when to give a child a cheap plastic comb to fix his hair, making sure the child looked as uncomfortable and unnatural as possible, and being mildly to completely uninterested in all the proceedings. I applied for the position and received back the good news that they were "impressed with [my] resume and or resume." Excitement flooded me, as I was impressed by their clear commitment to handwriting and carefully screening all their emails. I called and left a number where they could reach me, but perhaps I didn't stress that I was a qualified applicant (I own a car).

The Year of the Prius

When HD moved back to Brooklyn, he needed to buy a car to get allll the way out to the magical kingdom of Parsippany, NJ. Due to his eco-conscious conscience, he ended up buying a tricked-out 2006 Prius. It came fully loaded with:

• A completely useless rear camera, for those times when turning your head around is just too much of a pain
• An annoying beep beep beep back up noise, usually made by large trucks that people are worried about being run over by, rather than 100 pound cars that fold up into your pocket
• Enough compartments to keep me occupied for about an hour in the car
• A tiny tv screen who's only channels are the "how many tiny cars of energy have I generated" and "am I using battery or gas right now" channels
• A manly lilac paintjob, or "manlac" for short

Bluberries and Things

Blueberries have been slow to ripen this year, due to the excess rain and light beams from one of Saturn's moons

My one remaining apricot was decently delicious

Clematis making itself right at home

American Sweet Pea will eventually produce pods that you don't want to eat

Carrots

Pulled up a carrot today, even though I should have left them in the soil longer. I couldn't resist. Once I pulled up one, I needed to pull up more to satisfy my curiosity. None of them were really ready. I could tell from the shape that they're getting blunted by the soil. Will have to add more sand and peat moss to the soil for next year. Some green beans growing and some blueberries are ripening, but only the carrots and some lettuce have made it inside so far.

From top to bottom: Scarlet Nantes, 2 Purple Dragons

African Street Festival

I love me some sorrel, plantains, black seed soap and bake, so I met up with HD and Kool Redd at the International African Arts Festival at Commodore Barry Park for the last day on Sunday.

HD looking suave shoveling jerked chicken into his mouth

Koolredd says no snitching rule isn't even suspended on major holidays

Happy Birthday Sis

Happy birthday to my younger, and only, sister who just hit the quarter-century mark. However, since she's half-alien, that's really only like 15, which is how she's forever memorialized in my mind.