And the COUCH is still standing!

So, we helped our friends Chris and Mary move today..... sigh... I think we are now beyond broken and needless to say, no pictures were taken of the event. Brian and everyone else basically brought the boxes and furniture down from the apartment and Sam and I packed it into the Budget truck a la Tetris. Nothing broke, nothing shifted... we were very pleased. So one truck, several mild heart attacks over the removal of the couch via the roof of the porch and a thunderstorm later, our quest was over. Too bad I didn't think to snap a shot of the couch coming over the edge.... maybe I was too focused on dodging it's impending destructive encounter with the ground, come to think of it. Silly me!

Orly?

My friend Amy made these cute cupcakes and brought them to our Memorial Day party. She is the one that always comes up with all the cool ideas for making things out of cake. Congrats on another masterpiece Amy!

Erin practices her Luke-wrangling skills

I think this picture requires absolutely no commentary other than it was taken at Joel and Erin's Memorial Weekend Party :-P

Golf Extravaganza!

This is a neat shot I took during the agency's Golf Tournament, which I was fortunate enough to be the offical photographer for. I mostly took pictures of the foursomes to get printed out for them, but I did manage to sneak in some artsy stuff between groups. It was a fun day despite the chill on the air. Stupid me wore bermuda shorts in an effort to look like I belong on the golf course.... nope I was just cold! Well, the shorts were cute anyway and they reminded me of the ones Brian's cousin Andrew wore at Shawn and Kelly's rehearsal last summer. Those shorts were priceless! So when I saw the pair of bermudas in a brown, hot pink, yellow and orange plaid I just had to own them... Andrew, this is in honor of you....

Pot-banging music wins by a landslide, 20 years in the making!

You might wonder about the title of this post... and I wouldn't particularly blame you for doing so. Since I was young my mom has always had interesting taste in music. Now, as a music major at heart, I too have quite ecletic taste, however, that was not always the case whe I was younger. Like almost every other teenager and tween, I like top 40 songs and listened to Casey Kasem almost religiously. Caught up in my I-want-to-be-like-everyone-else years, I even remember my dad and I joking around that my mom was listening to her "pot-banging music" again. This of course was any music I deemed weird or not of the top-40 variety. Mom would listen to Clannad or Ladysmith Black Mambazo and we would just laugh and shake our heads. I mean, who would want to listen to that weird stuff anyway?

Well, needless to say, my mom took all the jokes in stride. And, it turns out that after all my years of taking music in high school and college the joke is really on me. At the ripe old age of 29, I really love the funky stuff my mom listens too. Actually, I am quite fortunate to have parents that enjoy so many different types of music. What makes them even more spectacular is that they actually will listen to AND usually like all the weird music I listen to as well, both in the past and now. Believe me, there have been some real winners over the years. Need I say that my poor father brought me to go see the New Kids on the Block? The man should be sainted.

So, to sum things up, for all the awesomeness that is my mom I thought it would be cool to go with her on Mother's Day to see the best pot-banging group of them all: Blue Man Group. Now, I just have to figure out something for my dad.... do you think they have an "Oldsmobiles on Ice" show anywhere? I think I may need to do some more thinking on that one.

Mini Reunion in Boston

Today a group of my friends from Wheaton and I had our own min-reunion. Usually we try to get together a few times a year to go camping (or at least attempt to before retiring to Jared's dad's house for warmth), have a Christmas Party, or go to some other event. This has been especially difficult lately becuase everyone is pretty spread out these day. Jen has moved to MD, Chris and Ceci are in NH and Jared and I are still languishing in MA. But this time we perservered and set a date for May 10th since Jen was going to be in town. Jared, Jen and I met up in the afternoon and had a great time chatting in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library until the chilliness forced us inside. Then we met up with Chris and Ceci and proceeded to have our usual senior-citizens dinnertime around 5:00 at The Cheesecake Factory.

After a very filling meal, much hilarity and a cheesecake coma we moved on to hang around at The Pour House. Please note that I was the one who suggested we go to a bar.... AND I knew were it was! Are you proud or what? Anyway, I finished off the night there and then took the T back to my little car waiting at Riverside. It was a wonderful day. I'm so glad we could all get together.

My first trip to Ferjulian's!!!!

Ferjulian's is a great plant/veggie stand right near our apartment. It is only open for part of the year and every spring I anxiously watch each day as I drive home for signs of life. They only opened for the season a couple weeks ago but until today I haven't had the chance to go. So, I went, camera in hand and emerged with one plant, 3 sets of seeds and about 50 pictures. Not bad for a 1/2 hour's worth of work. I'm going to try to grow container cucumbers, scallions and cat grass for Molly. It should be fun.

:- O

Every once in a while I take one of those pictures that just blows me away and this is one of them. I'll let it speak for itself.

More Drive Thru Photography

Yes, yes, McD's again, but I find it funny that these flowers match the color scheme of the building... it must be an ingenious marketing plan, or complete coincidence. You be the judge.

Momentary addiction #3,254: McD's Sweet Tea

Yes, it is full of ice and only $1 for a 32 ounce gargantuan-sized cup!!!! I think I'm in love...

Welcome Food Courtia... we like cash!

I swear I was just not meant to eat dinner at the food court today. I got in line at Sarku Japan, and yes I am aware that this is nothing like real Japanese food, but I like it, so sue me... Anyway, I was in a fairly long line and was being fairly patient as Colette was already inhaling her dinner from the place next door. So, I get to the cashier and she says they only take cash, which is a problem since I tend to live in debit card land most of the time. I leave the line grumbling... since I had been in line a good 15 minutes (enough time for Colette to eat her panini and frozen yogert and be waiting for me). I go to the ATM, get out $ and get back in line... about 10-15 minutes later I get to cashier, who promptly goes out back to do something... sigh. She comes back after a few minutes and a guy cuts in front of me to ask a question (at this point my good manners have gone out the window and I am glaring at people) Finally, the cashier takes my order, so I go to wait near the grill for it and the guy who cooks the meat leaves for the back! ARGH!!! @$#&!!! Ok, calm down, it's been like 1/2 a hour now since I first got in line, this is so not worth it.... I won't tell the rest of the tale, I think you can figure it out from here other than this picture was taken on our dining room table. I didn't really even want to eat it once I finally got my hands on it so I brought it home. Some days.......

I think I've crossed a line somewhere....

So many flowers, so little time! Well, in this case stems. I just keep on snapping shots of them as I'm stopped at a red light or am stuck in traffic. This one was actually taken when I was waiting in line at the McDonalds drive thru... I have this bad :-)

But I thought the backlight actually looked pretty cool because there were some neat shadows you wouldn't normally see.

May Day Rainbow

When I was growing up, on the first of May, my maternal grandmother would always give me a basket filled with all sorts of goodies in celebration of May Day. While this holiday goes by mostly unnoticed these days, I happened to remember her little tradition when trying to decide what picture to post on the blog tonight. When sorting through the 100 or so I took, I came across this one of the water wheel and somehow it reminded me of grammy. I had left work bound for the Grist Mill and while wandering snapping photos, I happened to notice that the spray from the waterfall was creating a pretty clear rainbow. I took a dozen or so pictures trying to capture it, but didn't think I had done it justice. It's funny that such a silly little thing like taking a picture of a rainbow will spark the recollection of a childhood memory like that.