Photos.

Day 24 ~ 11/27/08

Sadie gives her "uncle Dave" a kiss.

Day 23 ~ 11/26/08

Finally had to take down the map...

Day 22 ~ 11/25/08

A picture of pictures. I liked the light in my living room.

Day 21 ~ 11/24/08

Last day at Baruch! A planter out front.

Day 20 ~ 11/23/08

Window at St. Clement's, a theatre/church.

Day 19 ~ 11/22/08

One of the ubiquitous water towers.

Day 18 ~ 11/21/08

More art - above ground. These tree houses are an installation at Madison Square Park.

Day 17 ~ 11/20/08

This is one of my favorite subway mosaic - all up and down the platform are these hats, coupled with a tile showing the name of the famous person to whom the hat belonged. I suspect that the hats are all at the height of the person who wore them.

Day 16 ~ 11/19/08

A pencil case with speaker boobs.

Pies are squared

Tomorrow's meal should be excellent, though I certainly reserve the right to totally screw it up between now and then. Today I did as many of the advance things as possible, in hopes that tomorrow morning won't be totally crazy. (Ha!) I went ahead and made the dough for rolls, since it wants to chill in the fridge anyhow, though I'll have to shape them tomorrow. I'm not crazy about the wine I ended up using in the wine jelly, so that might be a flop, but the custard to go with it is just now off the stove and cooling, and that will be outstanding. I've never bothered with green bean casserole before - I love green beans, but I usually just saute them with some shallots and garlic (in the wok for thanksgiving - it's really the only pan the right size for a serious mess of beans). This year I'm branching out. I saw an episode of Good Eats in which Alton made a version of the ubiquitous holiday dish using actual real food. And it looked really GOOD. Which wasn't something I expected from green bean casserole. So I had to try it. It's looking pretty good in my fridge right now, all sexy in its cast iron skillet, just waiting for some last minute oven time.

One of today's tasks was the bourbon pecan tart. I'd actually decided against making it, because Dave's mom is bringing two pies, but I really like it, and neither of the pies is pecan, much less pecan with bourbon. I tried something new this time, using bourbon as the liquid in the crust - it certainly made a nice smelling and easy to work with crust, tomorrow will tell about the taste. It probably won't matter, since the filling is pretty intense, but  it was fun. I did find myself doing pie math though. Seriously. π r², quite literally. The recipe is for a 9" tart pan, and I only own an 11" tart pan, so I needed to figure out the amount to increase the filling. Turns out, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, to increase a tart from 9" to 11" (assuming the same height), you need one and a half times the filling. I'm bad enough at remembering to straight double or halve things, so I'm sort of impressed that it turned out so well. I really should just recopy the thing with the right measurements for the 11" pan. It's not like I'm going to get another tart pan, well, ever really.

But yeah, thanks geometry. Way to help out with the holiday dinner!

Photos.

Day 15 ~ 11/18/08

Candles seem to warm away the winter chill. Or maybe that's just the stove.

Day 14 ~ 11/17/08

Leaving home on the way to work. I hate winter in some ways. I miss daylight.

Day 13 ~ 11/16/08

There have been a lot more soldiers around the National Guard Armory lately, which is fine, it's the armory after all, but this scene, with the military vehicle and the ordinary life all around it made me think a lot about the Army unit assigned to domestic duty. It seems to blatantly defy the Posse Comitatus Act. I can't even have a simple photo project without getting all political. Sheesh.

Marriage Equality Rallytime!

Yesterday afternoon (at least, it was afternoon if you were in eastern or central time) there were rallies in 300 cities in all 50 US states as well a several other countries, supporting marriage equality. While there were plenty of "Shame on you, California" signs still about, the focus of the rally here in NYC was largely on the positive of what we want, not the negative of Prop 8 and its brethren.

Here are  a few of the pictures that I took yesterday, though none of them are especially fantastic, at least it can give you some idea!

You know how I adore the constitution! 

This was one of my favorite signs. ("Whoever said that orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed.")

This girl had the right idea! Climbing on something seemed the only way to even see where the stage might be!

Another good sign. I like the positive ones best. 

Of course, some negativity is pretty funny, especially when it's Wizard of Oz related!

There was something especially affecting to me about this girl. She seemed very intense to me.

While it's hard to argue that the Mormons are not an excellent lightning rod, I think that focusing on them is ultimately a losing battle. 

 

The police had cordoned off lots of areas like this, which made me think of Naomi Wolf's "Give Me Liberty", in which she laments the limits placed on public assembly.

Photos.

Day 12 ~ 11/15/08

I'll have a separate post with pictures from the marriage equality rally, but in the immediate aftermath, this scene struck me as especially poignant.

Day 11 ~ 11/14/08

Every night when I walk past this clock I find myself wondering why it is that the 8 and 10 are red and blue.

Photos.

Day 10 ~ 11/13/08

More subway. This is at the Dykeman St stop on the A line. Yes, the first panel says "WE HOLD". The last panel is blank now, but apparently on election day it said "VOTE".

Day 9 ~ 11/12/08

This will probably be a recurring feature, as I love the mosaics in the subway tunnels here. This is at the E stop at 53rd and Lex.

Day 8 ~ 11/11/08

I was attempting to capture my utter apathy for going to run the show, but I think this is even worse than I intended it to look. 

Sadly, the Belgian Beer Bar closed at midnight

But Dave (the second elec from Walter's tour, NOT my Dave) just said that Eeyore (sp?) was his favorite character from Winnie and the Pee-nee. In the context of his questionable sexuality. The PEE-NEE?!

I hope this is half as funny to you as it was to us.

Basement Blogging

Juno really is a pushy little girl. 

I put some sliced apple down on the wooden box there in front of them today and she literally walked all over poor Jupiter to get to it. Look at his squashed little ear! He doesn't seem to mind at all however. He's had his share and is just ignoring Miss Piggy there.

This show that I'm running right now (boring light board - I'm remembering why I've tried to make a break with the electrics) has Monday night shows. Who does that? Honestly. This is New York. We have standards! It's weird to get up on Monday, after a few two show days, and know that you have to go to work. It's like working Saturday (and Sunday) if you had a "real" job. Gugh.

Walter is back in town, but staying in a hotel in Manhattan with tour friends, so I met up with him and his friend Dave this afternoon at the Apple store (where, no, I did not buy anything) and wandered down Fifth Ave to Rockefeller Center. I rarely go down that way - no real reason to go there and millions of touristy reasons not to - but it was a fun excursion. We stopped in the Disney store, where I was actually a little disgusted by the absurdity of some of the Disney paraphernalia, and the Nintendo store, where Walter played Wii Music to my very great amusement. I think that the appeal of the Wii is that so many of the games make an art form out of turning stupid concepts into great fun. 

I dragged them down to Thom's for dinner (I wanted meatloaf ) and it was fun to be there - I've not been by much since the Sox lost game seven of the ALCS and my baseball season ended. I just don't care much about football and Thom's isn't exactly close to my house! I'd like to meet up with them again after the show, but we'll see how I feel when we get there. The dark of the basement here at Baruch is making me sleepy! The theatre is on the third or fourth basement level and for some reason the dark of this theatre is somehow darker than theatres above ground.

The wifi down here is cleverly named "crystalset" because at one point in the show the lead offers to get parts and a crystal set so her hidden Polish Jews can make a radio. Our network, like the radio (and the Jews for that matter), is hidden, so it seems even more appropriate. I like a cleverly named wireless access point. None of this "linksys" nonsense! Ours at home is sort of blah - it's twostep because we live on the second floor and Dave is a big Dave Matthews fan. I'll have to work on that...

Photos.

Day 7 ~ 11/10/08

No wonder I don't like getting out of bed - this is the window view from my pillow.

Day 6 ~ 11/09/08

Why yes, anxious stage manager, I am multi-tasking.

Search String of the Day

langston hughes bunny rabbit

If you, oh searcher, return, I'd love to know what you were looking for with that search string.

(h/t to Laura, who has been producing ssod's much longer than I have.)

Photos.

Day 5 ~ 11/08/08

I hated every picture I took today. I hated these leaves the least.

Day 4 ~ 11/07/08

Dave was sick, and spent a great deal of his time on the couch. Poor Coco here seems to have caught the bug.

Day 3 ~ 11/06/08

Visiting with Jovi, who's people are out of town. She was rather put out with me because all I pulled out of the fridge was the water pitcher, not the wet cat food. Miss Picky.

Day 2 ~ 11/05/08

Rainy day fire escape. I kept staring at the wet leaves all day.

Day 1 ~ 11/04/08

The beautiful, blue Commonwealth of Virginia, as colored on my dining room wall.

Project 365

About a year ago, in a bar in Jamaica Plain, I ran into my best friend from camp. He's from North Carolina, and camp was (and still is) in Virginia, so the Boston area was about the last place I'd expected to find him, having not seen him in nearly ten years. Turns out he was moving back there to take a new job and had been spending the day house hunting. He was stopping by the bar to celebrate his triumph. Dave and I were doing nothing so interesting. We were just there for a beer.

My friend, Matt, has been doing this photo project this year, taking a picture everyday and posting them, semi-regularly, on his blog. It's a nifty idea, and I've been toying with it for a while, so on Tuesday, with that crappy camera phone shot of my blue, blue, blue Virginia, I decided to start. They might be awful pictures, but I think that it will be fun, or at least interesting, and if I can keep it up for a whole year, a fascinating (or not) chronicle of the year.

Feel free to join me in this - might be fun to compare! If you're interested, there's a good overview over at Photojojo, or have a look at Matt's.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the great Commonwealth of Virginia

Go Vote!

RIP Madelyn Dunham

Now I'm really glad he went to Hawaii.

My heart goes out to Senator Obama. How heartbreaking to lose her, the day before tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, you  know where to go to vote right? And you're going there?