Above is a photograph of what I made for lunch today. I…

baked the olive oiled ‘gus for 15 minutes at 375 degrees
took it out
added Parmesan, tomato, ground pepper, and sea salt
put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes
om nom nom!

I’m reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. It is the first thing I’ve read all summer, I need to do more reading! It’s a great book, but I’m having a hard time keeping proper nouns straight (this is common for me). I’ve heard from some people that they liked the movie better than the book, and one friend told me not to even watch the movie. I think I’ll watch it and decide.

I came across two nifty maps of the United States. One map visualizes moves between counties while another visualizes land cover vegetation throughout the country. For the second map click on the “land cover viewer” button, select a location, zoom, and play with the controls. Both maps are pretty nifty.

I’ve been doing more research on Pomfret and I am almost sure that James Abbott McNeill Whistler lived in the white house two houses down from the Vanilla Bean. I also now know that his mother would have preferred not to live in Pomfret at all, but she wanted her sons to attend the school in Pomfret. Whistler took his mother’s maiden name as his middle name because of the sacrifices she made for him.

I also now know that Louise Chandler Moulton lived in the mustard house at the eastern-most intersection of Brayman Hollow and Peterson Road. Her family called the house “Elmwood Cottage.” Moulton and Whistler walked home from school together. One afternoon Whistler gave Moulton a painting which she kept until she died. A poem about her childhood home reads:

My thoughts go home to that old brown house
With its low roof sloping down to the east,
And its garden fragrant with roses and thyme
That blossom no longer except in rhyme,
Where the honey-bees used to feast.

Afar in the west the great hills rose,
Silent and steadfast, and gloomy and gray.
I thought they were giants, and doomed to keep
Their watch while the world should wake or sleep,
Till the trumpet should sound on the judgment-day.

And I was as young as the hills were old,
And the world was warm with the breath of spring;
And the roses red and the lilies white
Budded and bloomed for my heart’s delight,
And the birds in my heart began to sing.

…it isn’t the best piece of poetry, but it is comforting to think that she thought of her childhood home when she was older (and who would want to think of your childhood if you were raised a Calvinist). I will write more about Whistler, Moulton, and Pomfret in another post.

The seemingly, (and actually), random photograph of a Garter Snake was taken outside of my garden while I was home two weeks ago. Isn’t (s)he pretty!

2000 Designs, Forms, and Ornaments by Michael Estrin**
ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter
Arthur O’Shaughnessy His Life and His Work by Louise Chandler Moulton!
But is it Art? by Cynthia Freeland
The Century of Artists’ Books by Johanna Drucker
The Contemporary Print by Susan Tallman**
Eating Architecture by Jamie Horwitz
Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi
It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden
Louise Chandler Moulton Poet and Friend by Lilian Whiting!
Pictures of Nothing by Kirk Varnedoe
Printed Stuff: Prints, Posters, and Ephemera by Claes Oldenburg by Richard Axsom**
The Prints of Frank Stella by Richard Axsom**
Prints Now by Gill Saunders**
The Sublime Object of Idealogy by Slavoj Zizek*
Swallow Flights by Louise Chandler Moulton!
This is Not a Pipe by Michel Foucault
Whistler’s Mother by Elizabeth Mumford!

!    these books are through interlibrary loan
*   these books are being returned NOW
** these books are being returned NOW and were due yesterday

Lithography from Stones and Plates, Thorsten Dennerline, Th 2:10-6pm
Aesthetics, Karen Gover, T, F 4:10-6pm
Critical Response in Painting, Andrew Spence, W 2:10-6pm
Swift and Pope, Christopher Miller, M, W 8:30-10:20pm

and I still have a nice studio in Swan Garage.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Timbuktu by Paul Auster
Farm City by Novella Carpenter
American Green by Ted Steinberg
The Gardener’s Year by Karel Capek
The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

I also read half of each of these books:
The Path of Minor Planets by Andrew Sean Greer
Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi

I am currently reading:
Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Next to read are:
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A friend of mine pointed out a little piece of New England on Highway 1 in California. It is the James Johnson House. The website has information on the house’s history and floor plans.

q1 I have not yet spent my honeymoon.
q2 I do not know if I have met my spouse.
q3 I have not even met all of my cousins.
q4 why do you also tell me, o great god of secret questioning, “Make sure your answer is private, memorable and does not change over time?” What if I have another child and give them a nickname?
q5 without a honeymoon?!
q6 no
q7 no No NO
q8 Who was the last one to buy me dinner?
q9 Do great uncles count?
q10 and 11 How do evangelicals answer these? I’d answer “Southbridge,” but that will no longer be private when I post my answer to the blogosphere.
Q12 Okay! Do you hate security question?

Then they ask you more unanswerable questions.

q1 Pollan for now, but subject to change.
q2 I have not married between the first and second set of questions.
q3 or between the second and third question within the second set.
q4 uhh
q5 I don’t even know the names of my cousins.
q6 meh
q7 I don’t have a car.
q8 or a motorcycle.
q9 Didn’t nearly everyone’s first pet die? Thanks for bringing up the memory of feeding my pet frog for two weeks, hoping he would start moving again.
q10 I have not watched a sporting event in three years.
q11 We spent time in many places.
q12 Favorite teacher in what sense?
q13 Every year when I was young my best friend would move away or transfer schools.
q14 eww
q15 Is boss still a politically correct term?
q16 What if I was birthed at home?
q17 I do not frequently fly.
q18 I still have not grown up, that should be evident here.
q19 Okay, again?!

I found this diagram on SF Foodie. The blog links to an article on research findings related to the length of time before bacteria accumulates on apple pieces and Skittles. (Thirty seconds is safe!) Also, read about the Ultimate Foodie Earthquake Kit.

I bought a bicycle for commuting to and from work and work. It has ten speeds and was only used a few times. I now save four dollars in bus fares every work day (and many other days). The bike cost me two hundred dollars divided by two…I actually own two identical ones. I bought them from a woman living in Half Moon Bay, California. They have a lot of sentimental value for her. She bought this matching pair of bikes with a partner. (I think that is pretty romantic.) They have since split, but she didn’t want her bikes to part ways too. I agreed to buy them both and will be selling or giving one to my friend Ed and trying to figure out whether I should bring the other one back to the East Coast or if I should leave it here in case I come back.

I know that it is a good idea to be thinking about where I will be living after graduation, but honestly the only reason why I am doing so is because I have a bicycle that I don’t want to part with.

SFMOMA was free all weekend as part of their 75th anniversary. I walked four miles to and four miles back from the museum. Walking to and from the museum on a free day, I saved a total of thirteen dollars! I went to Trader Joe’s afterward and bought food to celebrate.