Clown Shoes Pimp?

Busy days. Good, busy days.

The big news - my older son, Chris, who was working at Cornell University, was informed a couple months ago that his department was being laid off due to budget cuts (he worked in the horticultural department, taking care of vineyards and orchards - a job he loved).

But (this is a bad news/good news story) before his job even ended, his best friend from high school asked him if he'd like to work with him, in Washington DC. Yay!

So Chris is living with us for the next 6-8 weeks, training in Philadelphia, and commuting to DC on the weekends, where he and his significant other have a shiny new condo with a shiny new lease in the Waterfront area. (I think he said Waterfront - I'm not all that familiar with DC neighborhoods.) But I love having Chris at home again, even if it is just for a few weeks.

And his new job is with a fabulous artisan coffee company, which means he brings home some great coffee!

What else?

A friend from high school was in Philadelphia for a meeting, so we got together. Here's Neil and Pam at our favorite Philly eatery, Perch Pub.

I had the Clown Shoes Pimp (nope, no idea how this beer got that name):





We posed by a statue of the Philly Phanatic.

After spending a ridiculous amount of time looking for a place to park in the historic district, we took a tour of the city. It was nice and cool on the top of the bus. Below is Pam, going past one of my least favorite pieces of Philadelphia street art.

As you can see, it was windy. And then it was rainy.

So we finished the tour on the lower level, and even though the tour was not so great, we had a wonderful time, and I laughed more than I have in a long time.

Before the rains came down, we did pass by the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, where two wedding parties were taking photos (it's a very popular spot for weddings).

The rains cleared the air and cooled us all off, and when I woke up this morning and took Bean out for his walk, I knew it was really and truly fall. I love the change of the seasons.

Our modest garden

What a difference a summer makes in a garden. Here is the front garden in early June.

And here it is in late August.

And yes, those are two bags of manure in front of the mailbox - we are still working on this thing!

Tim planted some sort of squash that began as a tiny little thing in an itty bitty pot in June (I didn't think to take a picture of it), and has grown into a monster trying to engulf the front steps.

Although I am enjoying the cool evening and mornings very much, we have reached that point in the season when I appreciate the warm days just a little bit more because I know their end is near.

When I watch the living meet

When I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.

A. E. Housman


Read A Shropshire Lad again recently, and was struck by this poem that I had never noticed before. No poet is more constantly aware of death than Housman, which of course makes him acutely aware of life.

I love "In the nation that is not."

More than iron, more than lead, more than gold I need electricity. I need it more than I need lamb or pork or lettuce or cucumber. I need it for my dreams.

In 1982, William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter programmed a computer to write English prose at random. “The specifics of the communication in this instance would prove of less importance than the fact that the computer actually appeared to be communicating,” Chamberlain wrote. “Quite simply: what the computer said would be secondary to the fact that it said it correctly.”

Written in BASIC, RACTER (short for “raconteur”) ran on 64K of RAM. Its output, which strung together individual words according to programmed structures and rules of composition, was largely gibberish, but it could produce startling flashes of apparent lucidity:

More than iron, more than lead, more than gold I need electricity. I need it more than I need lamb or pork or lettuce or cucumber. I need it for my dreams.



One of the items in Futility Closet, "an idler's miscellany of compendious amusements."

Cabbage Thief

Yes, this looks like a bit of a set-up, especially the final few seconds.

But it still made me laugh.

Bean enjoys watermelon and bananas, so it's not impossible that a dog might enjoy the occasional cabbage.

Home is Wherever I'm with You

My son Tim pointed me to this great song, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.

You can find live versions on YouTube, where you can see the band (and they are fun to watch) but this one seems to be the best recorded musical version.

I just love, love, love it.

The Greek islands

I seem to have taken a 3-week vacation from blogging, but it's over now. I'm not exactly sure why I stopped for a while, but I have an inkling.

I was sulking.

You see, just about three weeks ago I flew to San Diego (for work), and had a great time and took fabulous photos. Photos of a lagoon walk, and vases of real orchids everywhere at the resort, and seals sunning themselves on the rocks at La Jolla Cove, and unbelievably beautiful views of the Rocky Mountains from an airplane window, and . . . I left the camera on the plane.

It was my fault. I can't blame anyone else.

But every time I thought about blogging I thought about losing that camera and I got mad all over again.

Also, spending a few weeks without a camera made me feel sort of . . . blind.

It's hard to describe, but I felt as though I couldn't see things as well, since there was no chance of looking at them through the camera viewfinder.

I made some beautiful dishes over the last three weeks, including a fabulous homemade tomato soup and a chilled raspberry-jalapeno soup.

You'll have to take my word for it, though, about how lovely they looked.

At any rate, this afternoon we ordered a new camera, which should be here soon. Just a Kodak EasyShare, only sixty bucks - I've had one in the past, and I know they take fine photos for my amateur, nonprofessional purposes.

I feel so good, knowing that the camera is on its way!

In the meantime, I do have photos from someone else's vacation - my son Chris was in Bulgaria and Greece last month. During one week of that time he sailed around the Greek islands with friends.

I am so very glad that he had this opportunity - what a vacation to remember the rest of your life! And when I looked through his photos (there are more than 300), you know what else I really liked? He took pictures of things like the sidewalk scene above. He notices the same kinds of details I like to notice.

Thank goodness he didn't lose his camera.