Saturday, May 15, 2010

It was sad when Max left the island!!!

Posted at 11:46:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

It's so PRETTY out today. I forgot it could look this pretty!

Posted at 5:19:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

That was Kimball-level good!!! (But huuuuuge!) Really good Eats two days in a row!

(I loved this tiny picture on the placemat, next to the map of Greece.)

Posted at 4:54:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Large gyro (L), spanakopita (D), Greek salad (shared). Good coffee!

Posted at 4:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Flying to Taso Greek restaurant in Norwood, MA. It's so CAVU! Clocktower Mill, UConn, the Lake, Buell's. Can see Providence and Boston at the same time. I hope I got some good pics!

Posted at 3:32:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP. It's bird o'clock. Doesn't that bird ever sleep in?

Posted at 4:10:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Just saw that Chuck got renewed for a 4th season! Hopefully that's a good thing.

Posted at 1:20:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Okay, this didn't really take much crafty talent on my part, but I am still amazed by my brilliance in bringing these two objects together to create something that is way more than the sum of its parts. Today at Uptown Consignment, I picked up this simple necklace for only $4. It was just a flat inch-wide silver ring (sort of like a large washer) suspended between two super-soft pieces of leather cord, with the nice little necklace clasps on the end. I thought the ring part wasn't bad although a little boring, but I really liked the rest of it and thought I'd be able to easily unfasten the cord from the ring part and connect it to something interesting. I don't usually wear necklaces, other than my Undersea necklace by Jill Bliss, but the short length, unconventional materials, and delicate, simple design appealed to me. So, this evening I looked in my jewelry drawer for ideas and then in my white glass-door cabinet where I keep all my ocean findings. When I held the two pieces together, it was obvious they were meant for each other. I carefully attached the center with MonoMulti glue, and it held on perfectly, protected and supported by its new flat ring backing. It's the top center from a sea urchin--the part you almost never find intact, where there's usually a hole in the shell. I only have one. It's thin and brittle and delicate and detailed and amazing and so very very me. I know I'm going to wear this. Here's the big version so you can see the details.

Posted at 9:22:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Rhubarb for dessert, mmmmmmm!!! We went to O'Rourke's (!) for dinner, and they had rhubarb crumble! Everything was gooood (even Dean thought so). I had Fresh Wild Striped Bass! Highly moist and delicious.

Posted at 7:36:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Rhubarb for breakfast, mmmmmmm.

Posted at 12:15:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Aaaaaaaaaagh. If I had my own lion, I would send it after that BIRD.

Posted at 4:59:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

I just ordered a really cool pewter button on Etsy to use on my bag. It's from the same seller who made the amazing sea-themed buttons that January gave me two Christmases ago. Made the strap for the bag tonight, and I really like it! It will be two parts, and I figured out that the ideal configuration for the lower part is to have a shank button to pivot on. The bag is sort of like a mini-backpack, but it only has one strap, since I only ever use one strap on my mini-backpacks anyway. The strap extends from the center on the top, but connects to the side at the bottom. I figured this all out by clamping the pieces on in different configurations with binder clips I borrowed from Dean, from his Cabinet of Endless Office Supplies. The lower part of the strap is all leather, but the upper part is leather on top with a padded/quilted part underneath it, made from a small piece of My Favorite Fabric Ever, which I only have a tiny tiny amount of. I hope this bag turns out well (I have no idea if it will, since I'm making it up as I go along and it's totally different from any of my other bags) because I really like it so far. Working on it very piecemeal, which is good, because I need time to think about the different pieces and allow it to evolve. I will have to wait until I get the button to complete the strap, but that's okay.

Posted at 3:09:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Barista at Daybreak Coffee, to cashier: "Look at this foam!"
Me: "Nice!"
Cashier, laughing at her: "You're so proud..."
Me: "She should be! Foam is important!"

It wasn't even my foam, but good foam is worth being uncharacteristically forward. In other news, it's NICE out again! Also, I got fiddleheads at Whole Foods (from Czajkowski Farm in Hadley, MA). And more rhubarb, but only a pathetic three stalks. Not enough for MY CAKE. Oh, and I determined that the sweet potatoes I bought last week and actually liked (I didn't write about them, so if you're thinking, "huh?" that's okay) are "Organic Hannah Yams." I mostly bought them (variety chosen by chance) because Antonina is always talking about how wonderful sweet potatoes are, but then when I cooked them and sliced them up I was shocked and confused that the insides were cream, not orange like I was expecting! It looked so strange that I wasn't even sure if they were sweet potatoes, until I actually tasted them, at which point I was also shocked that I liked them, because I usually don't like sweet potatoes (except ION's sweet potato fries, which are pretty good...). They are milder and less sweet than normal sweet potatoes, which is a good thing in my opinion. I bought two more today.

Posted at 5:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Dean says all my fish drawings look like me.

Posted at 2:14:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Even though my new Fish of the Week is kind of ugly, he has such a great personality! Every time I do a new one, it becomes my favorite...

Posted at 1:51:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Fish of the Week time. This little guy was hard to draw (and I knew he would be), especially because he's gray, so I had to try to color him in without obscuring his features. The real fish is actually much darker gray than this but I didn't want to go any darker and ruin the lines. I know it looks a little colored-pencilly, but I couldn't figure out how to do the color on the computer, so this guy's gotta be a little more primitive. Anyway, he's a Hawaiian Zebra Blenny, one of ten blennies described in the book. The Hawaiian Zebra Blenny is not the prettiest blenny by any means, but I picked it to draw because it's the one I'm most familiar with actually seeing. They're the little eel-ular looking guys I see in the bottom of tidepools, and they're dark gray so they can blend in with the black lava in the pools. They always dart under a ledge or leap, slither, and/or even skip away to the next pool lightning-fast when they sense you coming. (The book suggests "it's possible that these fish are evolving toward an amphibious existence." !!!)

I've certainly seen lots of Hawaiian Zebra Blennies in my tidepool wanders, but I didn't know these fish were called blennies, and I have no idea if we see other blennies or not. They're all the kind of small, bottom-dwelling, fairly drab fishes I don't pay a lot of attention to (although other types of blennies are slightly more colorful than this little guy). The book also notes that it's easy to confuse blennies and gobies, "a similar family of small bottom-dwellers." Very true. I had no idea they were different fish.

BTW, adult Hawaiian Zebra Blennies have a row of tiny bright blue spots under the eye. Obviously, it's extremely subtle. I will have to see if I can ever see this in person. That would be cool.

Posted at 12:56:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I'm cleaning out a drawer in my room and I keep finding all this cool stuff I didn't know I had! Like my BCNU pin, a box containing about a zillion sharks' teeth, a matchbook from The Helmand, my old Sony Walkman cassette player (still works), and these great (and extremely sturdy) 1960s or '70s glasses! I have no idea whose they were. Robert's? But the prescription is really weak! They fit me pretty well, although wearing them to take this picture kind of hurt my eyes.

[Edit: Almost forgot, my Leeep frog! It squirts water if you squeeze it. Or, it did. It looks like the arms are in grave danger of snapping off, so I'm pretty sure it would leak if I tried to fill it up now. :( I really don't remember anything about where the Leeep came from, except that my dad gave it to me. I think he got it at work or at a work-related conference or something like that. Anyway, I always loved it because of the way he gave it to me (which I can't really describe at this point, but it was very him and I have a vague and very fond impression of it in my brain) and because it says "Leeep."]

Posted at 5:28:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I ordered the watch! (The $23.96 version, not the $97 version.) And Dean pointed out that even though the button colors aren't as cool as on the ALB-looking one, they do match my snorkel gear. I also showed Dean this one and he massively wanted me to get it, but I don't really think I'll need to do math while underwater, so I decided against it. Hahahaha, the ultimate in '80s cool!

Posted at 9:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Okay, final G Outing Day report! This is about last Tuesday.

The weather was nice again, so we went back to Hammonassett Beach, but to the opposite end this time. Unlike on Friday, there was no wind, and the ocean was so serene, it was like a lake! The far end had tons of cool red sand, with neat ocean-patterns in the red part. Here's my hand and the red sand! (Wearing my crinoid bracelet, natch. It likes beaches.) I asked my mom to take this photo of me on the breakwater. There weren't as many washed-up things as there were on the Meigs Point end of the beach, but my dad had fun looking for good pieces of driftwood, and I liked this delicate moth embedded in the sand. (I love how you can see that the grains are a zillion different colors.) We also found a message someone had written in shells, and I evilly took it over and modified it. Heheh. (It originally said "Laura ♥ Adam.")

It was really nice out, and we didn't even need sweaters/jackets. As we got back to the car it started getting super-overcast with big lurky stormclouds coming, and a few drops of rain fell, but our timing was perfect and we drove away, missing the storm. It was raining when we were back at the Gs' timeshare, but after I pointed out that even though it looked like it was raining a lot it was probably mostly dripping off the roof, and my G confirmed that this was indeed the case, we walked over to the main building so I could show the Gingers some of my Facebook photos on my dad's laptop. (The Wi-Fi reception is really flaky there and only works reliably in the main building.)

Then we went out to dinner to this restaurant that someone had recommended to them because it has "heart healthy" foods on the menu (along with heart unhealthy foods). It was kind of bizarre (it reminded me of that Buster's restaurant in Thompson that Uncle Randy recommended to me and David's family for lobster rolls... it seemed like it should have been in that part of the state, not on the shoreline!) and had ten thousand antique bears and was named Pat's Kountry Kitchen. Any restaurant that spells its name with a K instead of a C is klearly going to be a little kampy. Anyway, the special of the day was... SHAD and SHAD ROE! The shad roe part was optional, but I got both. They were a little tough and overcooked (my mom's microwaved-in-the-timeshare shad was FAR superior), but it was still totally great that they had shad and shad roe! I had even brought my camera in with me just in case there was something to take a picture of, and we were sitting at an unusually well-lit table. So I got this fantastic picture. Okay, it doesn't look that great. It wasn't. But it was shad! (And yeah, that's bacon on top. I know most people are really crazy about bacon and some vegetarians are even every-meat-except-bacon vegetarians, but I really am not into bacon and usually don't eat it when it's foisted upon me. I do have super-fond memories of Grandma Whaples' bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches, though.)

Anyway, I had a really fun time on each and every G visit! I love walking the beach with them, hanging around and talking, and all the little silly things we do and say. I definitely got my quietly goofy streak from my father. ♥

Posted at 6:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I looked for a new u/w watch at the mall today, but there was a dearth of appealing watches. I did find a suitable light gray digital cheap Timex one at Target, but there's nothing special about it and I'm a little worried about just how cheap it is. What happened to all the cute underwater watches I used to see, and why aren't there any analog ones anymore? I might order this watch on Amazon, just because it's unique looking and would be more fun to wear. Hugest tease ever, though: this one, which is exactly the same but with orange and yellow trim, is $97!

Posted at 5:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Dean says my new zipper looks really "robust." Ha! It is robust: metal teeth, special heavy-duty thread, sewn in using my new blade-like leather needles, and topstiched twice.

Posted at 9:23:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

It actually wasn't too bad out, once the wind died down. Sunny, at least. It's so weird swimming without a watch on! Must find a new u/w watch ASAP. I got some reflective piping at the fabric store!

Posted at 5:46:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

What the heck? I woke up super-early this morning by mistake (I don't even remember how early, but it was hours and hours and hours before I was planning to get up), but I made myself sleep on and off until a reasonable (for me) hour. I never wake up too early, and it was extra-bizarre since I woke up so late yesterday. It's so insanely cold and windy out, I'm kind of afraid to go outside to drive to to the pool. Maybe I woke up because the wind was blowing too much. It's supposed to be pretty cold all week (50s and low 60s) until Friday, too. Blah! I'm glad the weather wasn't this bad when the Gs were visiting.

My brain has been churning around with ideas for the new bag I want to make with the Uptown Consignment suede. I even drew a pattern for the back panel, and I want to get some piping cord (either pre-made if there's anything good, or cover my own).

Posted at 11:33:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

It's soooooooooo windy. And cold! More than 40 degrees colder than it was on April 7th!!! I couldn't fall asleep last night (stayed up too late working on stuff, and was too wide-awake and passed the threshold) and it got all chirpy and light in my room and I was COLD, so finally I put on arm warmers and took a back drug and eventually went to sleep, after 6 AM. I didn't set my alarm, so I slept until Facebook o'clock, when my 3:10 Palma alarm went off telling me to post! Uh. Heh. At least I did finally get a good sleep.

When I was lying awake all unable to sleep, I pulled my Netbook back out to try to get snoozy, and read about living fossils on Wikipedia. Ooooh! I saved the part where I click on all the links and open tabs to read about the individual animals and plants, though.

Posted at 6:36:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

P.S. "nacre" = what a great word!

Posted at 3:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Voss with lime is good, too! I want to try Voss with Australian finger lime. That was one of the only passages I marked in The Fruit Hunters:

Each finger-shaped fruit teems with spherical pulp vesicles that are the citrus equivalent of caviar. When the skin is sliced open, these tiny translucent pearls glide out of their vacuum-sealed packaging. The peel's colors ranges from purple to crimson to alligator-green; the interior comes in shades of pink, yellow, and nacre. Tasting them is akin to one's first sip of champagne; it's the sheer madness of the unexpected.

Posted at 3:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.