Friday, June 15, 2007
That planet is so bright. We went to the Clinton for dinner, and they were playing "Simple Twist of Fate" (really really quietly), "Quelqu'un M'a Dit," and "Corrina, Corrina" (also ultra-quietly). Dean said it was like they stole the playlist from me. I ordered a strawberry-rhubarb thing (foie gras), but the rhubarb level was very low. The lamb was crazily tender. It was super quiet. Islands in June are nice, before the summer rush begins!
Posted at 11:27:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot to mention: I love how you can smell things when riding a bike (unlike in a car). Nice things, I mean. Like honeysuckles. And I like seeing snakes. (But only if they're little ones.) I saw a cute snake on the path in Amherst.
Posted at 5:22:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 3:46:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I biked to Stew's!!! Well, not all the way to Stew's--I didn't cross the Berlin Turnpike, since I didn't have my snake lock with me anyway, so actually being in Stew's parking lot but not being able to go inside would've just been a big tease. But for all practical purposes, I biked to Stew's--via back roads, of course (including a little bit of the Suder Road, and good old Bacon Lane, and past the Berlin Fairgrounds). It was hard! I walked my bike a couple of times, on the biggest hills. But I rode most of it. I went on my big bike, not my hound. I wonder if it would be lots harder on the hound?
Coolness!! Jan sent me Australian and Italian coins! The Australian ones are particularly fantastic, especially 5¢. (It has an echidna on it!)
Posted at 2:05:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
And she sent me the entire series of Firefly + Serenity (!!). What a shangri-la director extraordinaire!
Foreign Coin Collection Country list update:
Italy (I now have 7 different)
(new!) Australia (7 different)
I like the fat $1 and $2 Aussie coins, too. $1 has kangaroos jumping all over it, and $2 has an Aboriginal guy, Gwoya Jungarai. They all have Queen Elizabeth's head on the front, of course. The 10¢ coin is weird. It has some sort of bird on it, but I would never would have guessed that without looking it up online. It looks more like a fish hiding behind a sea fan. 20¢ has a platypus. :-)
I'm trying to decide if I should go on a bike ride...
Thursday, June 14, 2007
We went on a new bike path! It's called the Westlake Area Bikeway, and it's in Middletown (the part of Middletown that's near East Berlin) and is super close. Not close enough to bike to, but really easy to throw the hounds in the back of Lex and drive there within a few minutes, get out the hounds and have a nice ride. The best thing about the path is that the first half is almost all uphill (to varying degrees), but the way back is almost all downhill! Every time we take the hounds out, we hear people making "Cool bikes!" comments about them. This path was only about four miles, but it was hard because of the hills. I got all out of breath!
Posted at 8:28:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Frogs have front-mounted tongues!
Posted at 12:48:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Posted at 8:48:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Stew's soft serve ice cream is insanely good! Dean got pistachio and I got coffee (the other choices were vanilla and chocolate, and they also have four kinds of frozen yogurt), and we were both very, very impressed. Stew's is the greatest! We want to try to bike to Stew's. It's only about 3½ miles away, but it's not flat at all. We also visited the wine shop ("Now Open!") and got some chicken wine to try. It's Primaterra Primotivo Puglia. I have no idea what that means (it sounds pugilistic) but I love the chicken drawing on the label. The wine shop is nice!
I stayed home today and it was nice. Quiet. Wrote some e-mails and worked on my bike bag, and stuff like that. I am achingly in love with the fabric I got for the lining. I wish it could be the outside fabric, but it's flannel and isn't really tough enough.
It's very still outside. We sat on the deck and read and drank the chicken wine. It grew on me.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Here's my finished Foreign Coin Collection Country list! (If it just says a number, that means they are all different; if it says "4 different" or something like that, it means I have that many different ones, but also have duplicate instances of some of them.) And Jan, it looks like I do have some Italian coins! I didn't realise this 'til now.
Posted at 10:01:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Canada (18 different, divided '04-'34, '40s-'50s, '60s-'70s, '80s, '90s)
Cayman Islands (4 different)
Guyana (4 different)
Lebanon (5 different)
Cyprus (4 different)
Egypt (4)
Nigeria (4 different)
East Africa (2)
Ethiopia (2 different)
Uganda (3)
Ceylon (4 different)
China (1)
Taiwan (2 different)
Hong Kong (1)
Philippines (2 different)
Iceland (5 different)
Sweden (3)
Finland (9 different)
Denmark (5)
Netherlands (1)
France (1)
Belgium (7 different)
Luxembourg (2)
West Germany (4 different)
East Germany (1)
German Empire (1, 1900)
Weimar Republic (1, 1924)
Spain (1)
Italy (6 different)
Greece (3)
Yugoslavia (1)
U.K. (11 different, divided between Queen Elizabeth era and pre-Queen Elizabeth; 4 are pre-Queen E.; the oldest is from 1912)
I have no Euros.
Wow! Yugoslavia! And here I thought it was Greek. That's a nice coin. I do have three Greek coins, though (which I didn't know were Greek until now, either).
Posted at 8:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Just finished putting all my coins in tiny 4.5 centimeter ziplock bags, by country, so they're no longer in piles spread out all over my floor. I've identified them all except two! (!!) One is hard because it's almost worn smooth and I can barely see the markings. (It looks like part of it says "cinco," though, so that's a clue.) The other is a group of four of the same coin, super-cheapo feeling (weigh almost nothing, like they're made of aluminum), with a big wreath-encircled 1 on the back (it doesn't say one of what) and foreign words that I don't recognise on the front. But I will figure them out!
[Edit: Got it!! They're from Cyprus. I solved it because one of the words on the back is "Kibris." I have other coins from Cyprus, but they look totally different.] [Edit #2: Wow! The "cinco" one is from Spain, from 1870! Mine is much more worn than the one in the picture (esp. on the heads side... mine's nearly completely smooth), but I can tell it once had those markings. I can't believe I figured out all my coins' countries. I have a Sense of Accomplishment™!]
Posted at 1:58:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Yesterday we flew 1) to dear old Jaffrey, and, on the way back towards home, 2) to Northampton, MA, where we took the hounds on the Norwottuck Rail Trail (for my ref., here's a second good link on the trail). It runs from Northampton to Amherst, on the site of a former railroad line.
I think the part we went on is about 8.5 miles, so that was 17 miles there and back, plus getting there and back from the airport, so maybe 18 miles total. It's pretty close to the airport ("Home of Friendly Flying," which was very true!), and was nice and semi-shady most of the way, surrounded by trees. Right after the trail starts, you go on a super-cool .5+ -mile iron former train bridge over the Connecticut River. It runs parallel to the Calvin Coolidge bridge, a beautiful big bridge I drove over on the way to Amherst last week.
The trail also passes behind a nice strip mall in one section (most of it's woods/farms, etc.), so we stopped for a short break on the way back and got drinks at Whole Foods! (I also bought and devoured a container of Profit melon.) I also made Dean stop for a few minutes on a nice wooded bench along the way to Amherst, where I rested a little and drank my water. It was warmer than we expected (since it was so cold last time) and I was sorry I wore my ugg shoes. I wore them because my feet were freezing in Nantucket last week, but after all that riding, they hurt my toes!!! I couldn't wait to take them off in Tango. Other than my toes, it was a lovely ride. I was quite tired out (in a good way) flying home in Tango and last night after we got back.
Oh, and the design for Dean's new (homemade by me) bike bag appears to be perfect! I loved my new rear basket, too. (And my bell!!) Several people commented on our bikes again, as we rode past. One kid asked his dad in incredulous amazement, "What are those bikes??" I was cracking up. My fav. part of the trail was the bridge over the river. It was so cool!
Oh yeah, and part of the trail was compromised by beavers who had built a huge dam!! We had to go off the path in this one closed-down section that was being fixed, carrying our bikes. I was able to carry my hound no problem, even though it was a steep and skinny rough dirt detour. Parts of the path were also very bumpy from tree roots that ran under the pavement, pushing it up like mole-mounds. But it wasn't too bad.
Here's a photo of Dean's bike bagsket. It has built in holders for a drink and the GPS receiver, and you can throw in maps or whatever else you like. The back has three velcro straps (backed with black leatherine) that hold it in place on the handlebars. It's very stable! The outside of the bag is made from brown leatherine with a nice soft leathery grain to it, and the inside is contrasting black suède-erine, very soft and cushiony because I machine quilted a checkerboard (1" by 3/4") pattern all over it, with two layers of soft cotton batting underneath. The quilting part took ages, with all those rows! It's super-touchable feeling. (You can't really see the quilting in the photos because the inside of the bag is so dark, but, believe me, it's there.) By biggest amazment was that the lining fits inside the outer bag perfectly! All accuracy of measurements and fit are thanks to Dean! Here's a cool photo of Dean with his hound, at the Amherst end of the trail.
