Aqueduct

Vandalism is never funny, especially library vandalism, especially vandalism at the Boston Public Library - a fine institution where I spent many an hour trolling for handsome graduate students. And yet somehow, the Boston Globe’s coverage of today’s incident left me in giggles. Located about half way down “Christ statue vandalized at library, Lucifer left untouched” was this gem:

I’ve been suffering from olfactory blues lately, an odd affliction, really. It started with a yearning for the smell that greets you when you wake up in forest in the northeast on a summer morning, after a night of camping, with a tale or two told around the campfire. There is a fresh, dewy green smell from the foliage, combined with a damp smoky trace from the embers - the smell to me is happiness, excitement and contentment rolled into one.

I’ve been hinting pushing for a family camping trip, all summer, but I’m getting some resistance. The resistance is entirely realistic and grounded in a fairly correct assessment of our current situation, but that hasn’t dissuaded me. Rather than barreling over my family with bruit force, I am trying to be more subtle. We are starting with day trips to the local state parks.

I believe that there are two kinds of people in this world, river/ocean people and lake people. My father was a lake person, my husband is a lake person, my son is leaning towards being a lake person. If the water doesn’t move, I don’t really want to be around it, and I tell you this because it predisposes me to favor certain kinds of state parks, which will be come perfectly clear.

Several weeks ago, I thought I’d broach the camping subject very carefully by proposing that we go check out the camping sites at Savoy State Part. Savoy is the closest to our house (a mere 1.8 miles from our home, if we needed to break down camp and be home in 15 minutes.) DH summed up the trip nicely on his blog shortly after the event. Savoy may have rivers in the park, but this is a pond campground, so I wasn’t too eager to go back.

Two weeks ago, we strapped the bike, trailer and the wee ride seat on the car and headed downhill a bit to the Windsor State Forest. DH dropped the kids and I off at the top of the road leading to the campground, we rode our bikes downhill and met him at the point where they damn up the river to make a swimming hole. DH and the kids fished while I sat at a picnic table and knit. We then drove up and hiked around the Windsor Jambs, which were just incredible. The park had campgrounds, as well as a fairly small circuit of trails. Being a river park, this one rated much higher on my scale, and I was starting to put together more pieces of the camping puzzle.

Last weekend we met up with another couple we know from swimming lesson and their daughter and at Clarksburg State Park. We got there a little early and drove a lap around the campground, which was much more crowded than the previous two had been. As we drove around, I rolled down my window and stuck my head out like a puppy yearning for the breeze. The smell was dense, musty and green but it wasn’t quite the smell I needed, that I remembered. We met up at the beach on the opposite side of the pond from the campground and had a perfectly lovely day. I knit like a fiend on a sock I was trying to finish, the kids played, the men fished, the moms chatted. And it was a perfectly lovely park, for a pond park that is.

I think my next proposal may have some appeal. DH has consented to consider spending the night in a yurt, and I’ve found a state park with one that still has a few available nights left. October Mountain State Forest, south of here in Lee is the largest state park in the system. It has lakes, streams and more trails than I could hope to cover in one day.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll find a way to cure these olfactory blues before the season passes and I’ll have to wait till next year.

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*Up until a few minutes ago minute ago, when I searched, I could have sworn that the name of this song was Olfactory Blues. Turns out the name is actually Lawn Boy. Here are the actual lyrics:

Phish - Lawn Boy Lyrics

Throughout the night
when there’s no direct light
and a thin veil of clouds
keeps the stars out of sight

I can smell the colors
outside on my lawn
the moist green organic
that my feet tread upon

and the black oleander
surrounded by blues
I’m soon overwhelmed
by olfactory hues

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Related Links:
No Child Left Inside - a special initiative designed to encourage Massachusetts families and visitors to enjoy all the recreational resources and outdoor activities that Massachusetts state parks have to offer! From Cape Cod, to Boston to the Berkshire Hills, it’s time to discover the fresh air and fun of the great outdoors!

Department of Conservation and Recreation the state agency that oversees the state parks.

Berkshire Botanical Garden, where the above photo was taken of Alex’s fairee house.

Reserve America an online reservation system for campgrounds in North America.

I updated my reading list on the lower right hand corner of the site. You can tell that it is summer by the titles I’ve added. I have no beach time planned in July, but you’d never know it from the books I picked.

Remember last winter when I did the 100 mile challenge? Well, I have identified a trend and my mid-life quest continues. On the eve of my 38th birthday, I completed a high ropes course without crying, and two weekends ago, I managed to not puke during a 90 minute hot yoga flow class in Boston. The next day, I jumped at the opportunity to hoist the main sail on a schooner trip through Gloucester harbor.

My next challenge is a bit less exciting, but just as demanding. I’m doing the Cool Running Couch to 5k plan - as delivered through this amazing podcast. I have one more run tonight to be through week one, and then will start week 2 tomorrow.

Unfortunately, my dear, protective husband has forbidden me from undertaking my next challenge till the kids graduate from college, but I guess that means I have 15 years to prepare to learn how to surf.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!

Ali, the top chef over at cleaner plate club tagged me for a meme, and so in keeping with the food theme, here are 5 things about me, the culinary edition.

1 - I don’t like mushrooms. I am really good at picking them out of dishes, but I did go through a period of time where I told the waitstaff I was alergic to them, to impress upon them that a mushroom shouldn’t even share the same air with my plate. Last night, I tried to get my 5 year old to try something on the table besides her beloved chicken wings with duck sauce, I even promised her I would eat a muchroom if she did, but alas, she failed to take me up on the offer.

2 - I love and miss seafood. Raw, steamed, grilled, baked in the oven or in seaweed at the beach, I love seafood - but I’m alergic to oysters. I found this out on my first valentine’s day date with my (now) husband. Unfortunately for him, I found this out after he paid the bill. The longer story is much funnier, but you’ll have to buy me a sushi role to hear it.

3 - It is hard to live with carnivores. If it didn’t roam the earth, darling DH doesn’t have room for it on his plate. The sounds of teeth on bones echos through our dining room as I’m constantly casting off my naugthy bits of beef to the ravenous horde. You’d think my husband’s family descended from a tribe of lions instead of generations of Ivy League educated humans.

4 - Until two years ago, I was not capable of eating any food with a hot pepper based spice (I could do wasabi for some reason - mustard based). Then one day, on a whim, I put one slice of a jalapeno pepper on a plate of roased veggies and my tongue exploded. Suddeny I was craving spicy, I suddenly got Indian and Thai cuisine. Life was now in color.

5. At the end of every Grateful Dead show, I roamed the parking lot looking for a “kind veggie bagel” a bagel with a thin smear of cream cheese, cukembers and sprouts, maybe onions and tomato. It was the perfect food to eat while wandering the lot looking for the perfect hair hand or beaded earings. The coolness of the cukember combined with the sweet cream cheese, softened my throat after a night of being in a smokey arena, and the bagel gave me energy for at least an hour of dancing in the drum circle back at the camp site.

I am going to tag Greg, and hope he’ll tell us five things he loves to cook …

My Podcast Playlist is a bit eclectic

• Accident Hash - A Boston based music show playing “podsafe” music. I liken it to college radio for the 30something set
• Cast On - A knitting podcast, which doesn’t do it justice in any way, good music, good stories and some yarn talk thrown in.
• Fit-Pod - workout mixes
• Jaybird’s Endless Boundaries - Used to be just a phish podcast, now mostly jam bands
• Looking Out The Window - The stories behind the songs
• Managing The Gray - New Media Marketing
• MCLA Podcast - my podcast for the college
• Nugcast - More jam bands
• The Dead Show - A weekly hour of the best live Grateful Dead music
• This American Life - you know that quirky NPR show

Most of the new music shows I’ll enjoy, but not really pay attention to. Every once in a while, a song will grab hold of me. Last year, around this time, I heard Noam Weinstein’s “When I Get My Shit Together” on Cast On and that became our family anthem for the summer, my children loved singing along (yes, I am the worst mommy ever). This past spring, it was Black Lab’s “Mine Again” which I still listen to frequently, but I mistakenly bought the album and not just the single on I-Tunes, and found the rest of the album wasn’t up to the same standard.

Just a few days ago, I was listening to Nugscast and was blown away by a song called “How Glad I Am” by the Grayboy Allstars. This is a poppy love song, which isn’t usually my thing, but the song has a hook, the singing is fantastic and it just may be the best single of 2007.

If you’ve got a buck, download the song and tell me what you think (or you can listen for free by downloading the podcast - http://www.nugs.net/nugscast/070418.aspx)

Up until I saw this ad, I considered Bill Richardson an “also ran” candidate.

Now I wonder if after Obama and Hillary finish tackling each other, an actual qualified candidate like Richardson might be the democrat’s best hope.

Good Luck to Chris Trembly, a city councelor and local businesman who will be opening a new pizza joint downtown. Chris, I can’t wait to try your local veggie pizza, good luck!

Greg Roach, a fellow North County Blogger and husband to a new knitting friend, has an article in today’s Transcript about life behind the service door. Other than Greg’s amazing dip at a recent knit nite, I’ve yet to experience his cooking, but now I’m even more eager to see his craftsmanship.

Good job Greg.

Hi Sock Pal, I really appreciate you being so considerate, and I’m sure my “whatever you want” instructions are probably driving you crazy. I knit for a sock pal once who had very, very specific instructions, down to the shades of which colors were acceptable and which weren’t, and I remember feeling like the point of the sock swap wasn’t to get custom made socks, it was to get a surprise. But maybe my laize faire attitude is driving you as crazy as her wish list made me?

So I present you with two options:

A)I live in a very big old house in western Massachusetts, we keep our heat at 58 degrees in the winter and I’ve been known to sleep in wool socks. My most basic wish would be for warm, wool socks. I also wear my wool socks with my snowshoeing boots, and on my nightly hikes inside my sneakers. So a sturdy pair of winter socks would be fantastic.

B) I work in a building with phenomenal heating and can’t wear my socks to work or else I’ll sweat all day. A thin, lacy trouser sock would be a pleasure to wear during the day. I tend to wear a lot of black or dark blue slacks, so most colors would do, I’m ok having my socks show when I wear my Dansko clogs.

Does that help?