Author: alejna

cold comfort

Last week’s friday foto finder theme was “comfort.” If you’re out and about walking, it can be a comfort to find a bench to sit on.

Perhaps not, though, if you happen to be walking in New England in winter. Unless your idea of comfort includes having a seriously cold backside.

This bench looks not only cold, but lumpy.

I’ve often thought that fresh fallen snow looks beautifully soft and pillowy. Given enough winter clothing, these chairs might actually be pretty comfortable with their fluffy white cushions….

(This photo was from my archives, taken in December, 2008.)

These snowy cushions, however, are really quite over the top. Literally.¹

This photo was from February, 2011. That was a very long, very snowy, very miserable winter. Even more so than this year. I’m happy to say that after a few days of temperatures well above freezing, our deck is now almost completely clear of snow. Which is good, as we might have more snow on the way this week. (I feel for my friends up in parts of Canada who have not so much of a thaw, and whose decks look still largely like this photo. Take comfort, friends. Spring will surely arrive…some day.)

To see other people getting comfortable with this theme, head on over to the fff blog and set a spell.

¹ I do mean literally literally. Not figuratively.² That snow reaches over the tops of the chairs.
² I received an email from Tumblr recently with the subject line “Your Dashboard is literally on fire.” I found this rather alarming. In case of an actual fire, an email is perhaps not the best means of communication.

Bidding Winter goodbye

Tomorrow is the official first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Unfortunately, in the particular part of the Northern Hemisphere where I live, Winter seems not to have gotten that message.

I’ve gone into Boston for meetings the last couple of days, and the snow is all but gone there. Roofs, roads, and ground are free of snow and ice, save for the occasional fist-sized stubborn lump of ice remaining from what once have been a mighty mound.

Not so in my neck of the woods. Here is my front yard:

This is the mound of snow and ice resulting from shoveling out the top of the driveway. This was this morning. It was 20 degrees out.

It’s true that I have really enjoyed looking at and taking pictures of many of the ice and snow formations.

I have many, many photos of ice and snow. Icicles, frost, falling snow. Snow flakes, snow men, snow caves. Sparkling ice in the morning sun. Smooth frozen puddles with embedded bubbles and cracks. Fluffy untrampled snow, and interesting patterns of tracks in the snow. Quite honestly, I am about ready to move on to another subject matter.

Soon, I hope to fill up my phone with images of green shoots and early blooms. Unfortunately , this is where our first crocuses tend to emerge:

There are many things that I like about Winter. One of them is that it eventually ends and gives way to Spring. So, here’s wishing a fond farewell to Winter. (And here’s hoping that Winter gets the message and departs. Before I have to file a restraining order against it.)

Shiny Apple Pi (and some peach pie pi, too)

This week’s friday foto finder theme is “shiny.” I have loads of photos of shiny things in my photo library, but seeing as it’s Pi Day, I coudln’t resist including some pi (and some pie).

Apple pi, on a shiny plate. (The apple is pretty shiny, too.)


A shiny pi server.


Here is this year’s annual Pi Day pie, which was somewhat experimental: a peach blueberry pie with a crust topping in the shape of pi, and filled out with circles of pie crust (each of which had the circumference of roughly 2πr). To see some of the other pi pies from my past, check out my old post, easy as pi.

To see what other shiny bits people are sharing, check out the fff blog.

fff 200x60

A 2000-year-old loaf of bread (friday foto finder: old)

This loaf of bread was part of an exhibit of artifacts from Pompeii that I saw at the Boston Museum of Science back in February of 2012. This bread was one of many loaves found in a bakery oven, preserved from when the Roman city was covered in layers of volcanic ash when Vesuvius erupted in the year 79 a.d. (You may realize that I exaggerated in the bread’s age. Or rounded. The bread is only 1934 years old, and a few months.)

I found the exhibit to be fascinating for the glimpses of everyday life that were so strikingly preserved. The exhibit was also haunting in that it contained not only relics of life in that city, but forms of many who died. The imprints of their bodies and clothing were found in the cemented layers of ash, and plaster casts were made from these hollows, to reveal the shapes of individuals posed as they were in their last moments of life.

This week’s friday foto finder assignment was to share a photo for the theme of “old.” To see what other old things have been unearthed, and to share your own, pay a visit to the fff blog.
fff 200x60

I left my scarf in San Francisco

Last week was the kids’ school vacation, and we headed out to California to visit my mother, my sister, and my sister’s family. It was a really great, if exhausting, trip.

We really lucked out with the weather, on both ends of the trip. It’s been a rough winter here in Massachusetts, with many a snow storm interfering with travel plans. We know a family whose Florida vacation fell through due to a blizzard the day of their scheduled departure. Another snowstorm the day before we left caused many cancellations and delays and complications (ask me about John’s car getting stuck in our driveway). Remarkably, however, our own flight was only slightly delayed.

Travelling with 2 young children is never uncomplicated, though, and the airline threw us a bit of an adventure by not giving us seats together. (They actually had Theo, the 5 year-old, sitting off on his own.) But after much runaround and wasted time on the phone and at the airport with airline employees who claimed to be unable to help, the gate agent gave me a free upgrade to a better seat at the front of the plane, in a section with more legroom, thus giving me better leverage to ask to exchange seats with one of the passengers assigned seats next to Theo. (There was that moment when John and I looked at this sweet seat, and thought that Theo might just be fine on his own…) In any case, the man seated next to Theo jumped at the chance to change seats, practically leaping out of his seat before we even had a chance to finish making the offer. (Oddly, he apparently didn’t want to spend the 6-hour flight sitting next to an unattended 5-year-old.)

In all, the trip out went very smoothly. Our luggage all arrived, we rented a car, we drove out to my sister’s house. We were, however, totally exhausted. The flight was scheduled for 8 a.m., and (living an hour from the airport) we had arranged for a car to collect us at 5. John and I were up so late getting things in order for the trip that ultimately, we didn’t end up going to bed. (There comes that moment when you can decide to go bed for a 2-hour rest to get up feeling like death, or just keep barreling through to get more stuff done.) Given the exhaustion, and the complications of getting there, it shouldn’t surprise me too much that I managed to lose something along the way: my favorite scarf.

Before having realized that I lost it, I might not have identified that particular scarf as my favorite. It was a scarf that I bought on my trip to London with John in 2005, our delayed sort-of honeymoon. I found it in a sale bin at Harrod’s while on a quest to find black and charcoal gray striped scarf. This particular scarf was not quite what I was looking for, being plaid with black and varying shades of gray. However, I quite liked it, and over the years, I found that it became my go-to winter scarf. It went with so many of my various black and gray clothing choices. It was also a very soft cashmere. I contacted a range of lost-and-found departments (airline, airport and car rental), but had no luck finding it.

In the end, the loss felt a bit like I had made a sacrifice to the travel gods for an otherwise safe and successful trip.

So, enough about the scarf, and more about the trip, which was mostly unaffected by my not having a winter scarf with me. Because the weather was perfectly gorgeous¹. It was mostly sunny and clear, with high temps ranging from the low to high 60s. (This after coming out of a New England winter with many days when the high didn’t get up past 20.) We had lots of fun excursions, big and small. We had quality family time, with lots of cousin playing and bonding time. We got to see my aunt and uncle who were passing through town, visiting my mother. We had lots of birthday celebrations (for my sister, my 2 nephews, and for Phoebe). The week rushed by in a blur of kid-wrangling and meal-planning and catching up with my family. I had actually hoped to be able to see some friends who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, some of whom I haven’t seen in many years, but never managed to make any arrangements. (So I did bring back some guilt for having missed those opportunities. However, it is always a very different thing to be travelling with my family than when I travel alone.)

Now we have been back almost a full week in the land of ice and snow, and our hectic over-scheduled schedule. I miss the relaxed mornings of vacation. I miss my family and the warm sunshine. And I also miss my scarf.

—

¹ This gorgeous weather, unfortunately, is not what California needs right now, as there is an ongoing record-breaking drought. Happily they did get a bit of rain after we left.

pigeons in flight (friday foto finder: pigeon)

(Last) Friday’s friday foto finder challenge was to find and share photos featuring a pigeon. I had a few pigeons to choose from, but my eyes were caught by these pigeons taking flight on the boardwalk along the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY.

Of course, I can’t post photos of pigeons without remembering this little movie I put together from some mostly accidental footage from my mother’s camera from our 2007 trip to Paris, that includes a fleeing pigeon. (If you watch the movie, it really does need the sound on.)

And if you want more of my pigeons, see my post called pigeon post. And if you want to learn something about pidgins, see my post called pidgin post.

To see what other pigeons have been posted, check out the fff blog.

Hong Kong trip recap, Day 5 (part 2): The Harbour Cruise of Torment

In August 2011, I was lucky enough to travel to Hong Kong for a conference. I started to post recaps of my adventures there long ago, but got sidetracked by life. Sparked on by a request from YTSL, I will now begin to dive back in.

Where last I left off, I was part way through day 5 of my adventures. The first days of my trip were jam-packed with rather manic attempts to see as many sights as possible (day 1 and day 2) followed by much mellower days of conference attending (days 3 & 4). I had eaten lots of good and interesting fresh food, met with friends, and was thoroughly enjoying being in Hong Kong.

The early part of day 5 was marked by a conference-arranged bus tour, which was somewhat painfully entertaining in ways that were probably not intended. In spite of my suffering, I did see interesting places and took many photos. Now we return to the end of that day, when the bus delivered me, my advisor and a bus load of other phoneticians to the Harbour for our much anticipated dinner cruise.

In addition to dinner, for which I had high expectations given the wonderful food I’d eaten in Hong Kong so far, we were going to have prime views of the much vaunted Harbour light show, the Symphony of Lights:

Named as the ‘World’s Largest Permanent Light and Sound Show’ by Guinness World Records, coloured lights, laser beams and searchlights perform in an unforgettable all-round spectacle synchronised to music and narration that celebrates the energy, spirit and diversity of Hong Kong.

As we walked up the gangway, I commented on the tackiness of the pink ferry we passed. This, naturally, turned out to be our boat.

Having envisioned that a harbour cruise would prominently feature looking at the harbour, I was rather dismayed to find ourselves funneled into the interior of the boat, which was set up with round tables, and not with seats designed for looking out at the views.

Happily, there was a top deck that we could access. I rushed up to get some photos before the light faded. I was surprised by how few of the other people were up there. After the long confinement of the bus ride, I was happy to get some fresh (albeit hot & humid) air, but others seemed lulled by the air conditioning.

The boat had so, so much pink.

The rosy sunset briefly tried to compete with the aggressively rosy pink of the ferry boat before retreating behind the hills.

When I headed back down to main deck, the “fun” had really started. The dinner buffet was open, and there was live entertainment. I don’t have any photos of the food, but just try to imagine yesterday’s cafeteria food presented as ostentatiously as possible. The copious offerings included bad day-old overchilled sushi, bad reheated Indian food, as well as a host of other mediocre-looking probably-leftover international delights. For those wanting lighter fare, there was a variety of salads featuring freshly-opened canned vegetables.

For entertainment, we were treated to earnestly sung lounge music versions of pop tunes, from Wham to Lady Gaga. (The singers were so very earnest.) The spacious dance floor offered plenty of room for people to awkwardly skirt around while trying to reach the exit stairs.

At some point in the evening, there was a buzz of excitement, apparently in reaction to an announcement (unheard by me over the noise) that it was time for the “unforgettable spectacle” of the light show to begin.

Everybody rushed up the stairs, crowding onto the deck. The night skyline looked colorful and spectacular, but not actually particularly more colorful and spectacular that it had before the start of the show. Ah, yes, there were some search lights here, a flashing building there. There was this odd sense that nobody really knew when the show had actually started, or what we were really all up there to see.

We couldn’t hear any of the music to which the spectacle was allegedly synchronized. In general, there were lots of colorful and some flashing lights on the buildings along the waterfront. For a short time, there was a marginal increase in the flashing and the colorfulness. It was as hard to tell when the show had stopped as it had been to tell when it had begun. Gradually, the crowd thinned.

This colorful scene was not part of the light show:

It was fun to see the other boats and ships in the harbour, including one of Hong Kong’s iconic red-sailed junks (though I learned that it is merely a replica.)

I’m not sure why only a small portion of the top deck was open for passengers. When everyone was up to see the light show, it was quite crowded, and this space shown here was inaccessible. You may notice that there was a total lack of visible lifeboats. I can only assume that this was to prevent guests from attempting to escape from the bad food and music.

After staying around up on deck to take more photos of the colorful skyline and reflections, I eventually wandered back down and made some attempts to mingle and network. (Since that was, in part, what prompted me to sign up for the conference-arranged outing.)

Sitting around the tables was just as enjoyable as sitting with people you don’t know at the wedding dinner of some cousin you’ve barely met. But without the champagne and wedding cake. I made attempts to chat with the person sitting next to me. First, we established that there was no overlap in our research interests. Next we established that there was no overlap in our philosophy about travel. She was happy to relax by a hotel poolside when not shopping for bargains on counterfeit designer fashions, whereas I like to wander the streets and absorb as much local culture as possible. Our awkward conversation floundered.

As soon as I could come up with an excuse to the leave the table, I headed back to the upper deck, where I waited out the rest of the cruise. I’d had enough mingling, bad food and earnest lounge music. The cruise couldn’t have been more than 3 hours long, but it felt an eternity. The streets of Hong Kong, with their interesting things to do and delicious foods to eat, remained tantalizingly out of reach. I was trapped in a pink, flashy, noisy wedding cake of a prison.

I am told that my face lit up with a giant smile when the ferry boat finally docked.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Year of the Horse, coming around once again

Happy New Year! Welcome to the year of the horse.

I love the cyclical nature of the Chinese zodiac. To celebrate the return of the horse, I offer up a set of photos of merry-go-round horses going around and around.

I am still working through my list of suggested and requested posts. Coming up soon will be a post from my now-not-so-recent trip to Hong Kong. (Yes, YTSL, I am really working on it!) I still welcome additional suggestions for things to post! Just leave a comment on my earlier post, and I will happily integrate new suggestions into my list.

silver fish, gold fish (a pair of almost completely unrelated photos)

I present to you one giant silver fish, and one smaller gold fish.¹

At the Boston Common on New Year’s Eve, while wandering around looking at ice sculptures, we came across this big silver-colored fish car. It was possibly related to the First Night events going on there, but in a way that was not clear to me. What was clear to me was that I needed to take a picture of it.

When I went to China in 2012, my hotel in Shanghai had rather unusual furniture. Most of the larger pieces (the armoire, dressers, settee, and even the beds) were adorned with fairly large and extremely shiny gold fish. I only wish I had better photos to show off their extreme shininess.

For another still grainy view of one of the gold fish (possibly even the same one, you can click here. I have even been inspired to upload a short video taken while walking through this very…special…room³. Sadly, the movie is also quite grainy, but you can still make out the shiny fishy shapes on the beds and other places.

So, tell me about you: If you were going to build a giant fish onto a car, what color fish would it be? And what sort of car? (A Toyota with a trout? A Mini with minnow?) And if you were going to design furniture featuring large shiny gold animals, which animals would you choose? These are the important questions that I pose to you.

—
¹ This post is in response to Ally Bean‘s prompt to of “gold or silver [photos of?]”. Naturally, I could not choose either just silver or just gold. Much like I couldn’t settle on either just a haiku or an acrostic.²
² If you, regular reader or hapless passerby, would like to also suggest a prompt or ask a question to elicit a post from me, feel free to do so in my post of last week. I would be tickled if you did.
³ If you feel the need to stay in such a room, it was a suite in the Salvo Hotel in Shanghai. I cannot guarantee that all of their suites are equally well-appointed with fish.