Category: photos

a metaphorical filled pause (and a cute baby)

Ok, so I don’t have time to write tonight. I have lots of work to do, and am seriously sleep-deprived to boot. So I’m using this post to signal an expected delay. Think of it as an um.

But to distract you from my lack of writing, I feel compelled to show off this picture of Phoebe that I took at my sister‘s house, and that John cleaned up for me:

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Also, please note that Phoebe is wearing a hat. I tell you this as an excuse to share with you that Phoebe can now say [hætʰ]. And I finally posted a bit to the Phoebe Blog about her latest verbal accompishments. Ah, the perils she’ll face of having a geeky linguist for a mother. (I’ve already been chasing her around with a microphone. But she tends to clam up when I try to interview her. I may have to resort to bugging her crib. Catch every word she says to her dolly and stuffed puppy dog.)

welcome home

I hope I’ll have a chance to write some more about my trip out west soon. We had some fun activities, ate some great food, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time we were there. I thought I’d quickly share a couple of photos. First, here is a photo of us sitting on my sister’s front steps in sunny northern California.

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Next, here’s a picture of my own front steps, back home in Massachusetts, taken earlier today.

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Here’s a close-up of the front steps.

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back to the rat race

We got back home late, late Wednesday night (or early, early Thursday morning). I had an amazingly wonderful time on my trip, and felt totally decompressed.

Of course, the problem with decompression is the shock of re-entry.

I’m compressed again.

Compression happened pretty quickly. I was hit, knocked down, and run over several times by the realization that I’d gotten no work done at all for over a week. (I managed to read 2 pages of a book I need to read. Does that count?)

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Once again, I’m faced with loads of deadlines. Reading for my program requirements. Reading for class. An assignment for class. Stuff for my job. And not a whole lot of time. Rats.

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By the way, today marks fourth months of this here blog. And I have a whole bunch of things I meant to write about that I haven’t gotten around to. For example, I have yet to write an “about” page. About me, about this blog, about the term tokens, about about. Maybe I’ll get around to this in the next month or so.
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This post also marks my 100th post. Of course, I only wrote 99 of them. The first one was the auto-generated one I got when I signed up for a WordPress blog. And it got so many insightful comments, from a variety of fascinating personages, that I decided to keep it.

actual unretouched Phoebe photo

Phoebe has started standing a whole lot over the last couple of days. And, man, has she been growing. She’s getting huge. “So big,” indeed. We managed to capture a few instances of her demonstrating her standing skills. Here’s one of her showing off a kung fu stance to an admiring crowd on this sunny spring day.

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By the way, this photo is totally authentic, unlike those news photos I’ve been reading about lately.

A Message from the Ministry of Pants

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you the following important message: Pants are everywhere. We bring you this pair of pants images:

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John and I saw these pants window banners at the mall a couple of weeks ago at Banana Republic. Neither of us had our cameras with us. I’ve been meaning to get back there to take a picture before they pull down their pants. But I haven’t had time. Yesterday, John, love of my life, heart of my heart, stopped by the mall again on his way to a meeting. Just so he could get me these pants.

pajama mama

I love pajamas. (I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I love sleep so much.) One of the unexpected benefits of being a parent has been increased access to pajamas. Little pajamas. Lots of pajamas. And in particular, footie pajamas. I thought I’d share a retrospective of some of the pajamas I’ve known over the past few months.

phoebe and mommy
February: Phoebe in frogs and swamp critters, Mommy in silk
March: duck

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April: With Daddy, in yellow velour pajamas (Phoebe’s in the pajamas, not Daddy), and pink stripes

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May: John Lennon’s Imagine
August: pink elephants (with access to toes)

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September: Winnie-the-Pooh flowers and yellow-covered toes

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October: hippos, squirrel, green flowers and Halloween kitty


November: fuzzy purple

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December: owls and snowmen

And finally: January

You think you know someone…

As I mentioned recently, John and I have been together for quite a while. Over 15 years, to be specific. So you’d think I’d know John pretty well. But he does find ways to surprise me.

John has a background in math and computer science. He’s been working in the computer industry since before we met, and in the years since I’ve known him, has become an expert in his subfield of the industry. John also is a technophile. He likes the cool toys, and has a weakness for electronics. So when John bought his first impressive digital camera, it didn’t surprise me. And when John started learning the ropes of photography technique and digital image processing, that didn’t surprise me, either. What did surprise me is that over the last couple of years, John has been taking some really beautiful photos. I didn’t know I’d married an artist.

Anyhow, I’m happy to say that John has started posting some of his photos on his blog. Three posts so far. Hopefully more to come.

I’ve been thinking that one of my new resolutions in the realm of blogging, once I get around to acknowledging the new year and writing them, should be to post more pictures on my blog. So I’ll take this opportunity to post some pictures. Below is one of John’s, of an abandoned mill in the town next to ours.

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The lines of the structure actually reminded me a bit of a Shinto shrine. The vertical supports of the wall and the slightly curving horizontal edge of the roof suggest the shape of a gate to me. I was particularly reminded of a picture I took of a street-corner shrine I came across in Nara, Japan when I was there for a conference in 2004. Here’s a photo of it.

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And here’s another one, showing a bit more of the street.

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