First Day of School

Birthday

Marine Biology - Sunset (amazing light)

Marine Biology

 

yourpet

FY12 Workplanning

Mexican Night

Corn Tortillas with Queso Blanco

Black Bean Salad

(black beans, corn, avocado, tomatoes, cilantro with a squeeze of lime)

Beer

College Night

Buffalo Wins (homemade)

Ranch Dip (homemade)

Carrots & Celery

Black Bean Dip (homemade) & Salsa (not)

Chips

Beer

Vespa Ride, Nighttime NYC

Arcade

Brazilian Feast (OMG)

Great people, great music, celebrations. 

Caipirinhas

Arroz com feijao

Lombo com farofa

Churrasco

Salada de Palmito

Tribute to Cy Twombly (1928-2011)

Perfect summer evening

Our neighbor gave me a eggplant from her lush summer garden, and I prepared this gorgeous recipe from the NY Times. Served with oven-warmed pita, and thick, tangy Greek yogurt, it made a delish veg meal - perfectly accompanied by a nice glass of Spanish red for mom and seltzer with lingonberry syrup for Dear Daughter.

Later, we took our bikes to the new gelato place near Eastern Market, where I had a mix of Sicilian almond and chocolat noir, while she chose chocolate chip and strawberry.

Just about every part of this post has something I love about my life. Neighbors, garden vegetables, good food, Turkish-style braised eggplant, anything from Turkey, yogurt, anything from Greece, the New York Times, eating well, red wine, anything from Spain, lingonberry syrup, anything from Sweden, Dear Daughter, bikes, Capitol Hill, cities, ice cream, gelato, anything from Italy, almonds, chocolate, local, community, summer light,  and summer evenings.  Bliss.

Desert Design Nirvana

Sigh...I love the desert.  While I generally thrive in the urban habitat, I think the desert might be my favorite landscape.  I find total beauty in its starkness.  I love the big sky, the limitless terrain, and its muted colors.   I love that it is quiet and empty, and the way life springs up in such inhospitable conditions.  Some of my favorite outdoor moments among a long and wonderful lifetime have been hiking in Red Rocks (Nevada);  exploring in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico; marveling at the striated hues of time - thousands of years of it - in the Painted Desert (Arizona); making day trips to Joshua Tree National Park, and riding on the back of those cute Peace Corps boys' motorcycles to the top of the buttes in Niger's moonscape.

And this amazing house built in the middle of the desertscape somewhere in Nevada featured in the New York Times.  Somewhere in Nevada is actually Scotty's Junction, about 125 miles north of Las Vegas on the edge of Death Valley.  But even with all that orienting, it's still Somewhere, Nevada to me.  At 1200 square feet, its relatively small footprint is sparse, simple, and efficient. It reminds me of some of the fabulous pre-fab, eco houses built and highligted in the Solar Decathalon,  This one, Lumenhaus,  I wrote about in a previous blogpost.


The NYTimes slideshow is gorgeous.  I can walk into every picture, and imagine myself writing by the window...soaking in the spring fed hot tub...sitting on the porch looking at the sky change....cooking in the kitchen (or just getting lost in my thoughts while gazing out its window)...taking a shower in the sage-green tiled bathroom....or watching the planetarium spin its show outside the corner bedroom windows while drifting off to sleep...x

The owner and family is Italian, and the design aesthetic shows.  Their personal style sense shows, too, here in the family shot (hello, Grandma!)  But the furniture is functional and affordable from Ikea and CB2.  In fact, the overall house is affordable, custom built for $290,000.  With a bordello and an abandoned chapel as the nearest neighbors, I'm imagining that it is not prime real estate either...yet.  My increasingly green sensibilities are offended by the energy it must take to drive in and out of here - car-dependent to the max.  But I'm comforted by the fact that there is no air con, just ceiling fans, and presumably smart window placement and indoor and outdoor shades.

I do wonder what all that space and closeness means when I take the romanticism away.  Would I go stir crazy there?  Alone?  While often an introvert, too much time with myself makes me batty.  Together, would we drive each other crazy?  Would it be disturbing at first, only to turn more blissful with each passing day?  Or the other way around?  I'm willing to try it...are you?