Category: photos

While I was at the planetarium

I don’t know what makes me notice things. Every day some little detail catches my eye and I have to go exploring. So I went to the planetarium last month because the telescopes were open to the public to view Jupiter and Saturn. I’ve never seen any planets through a telescope, because I didn’t know anyone with a great telescope, so all the telescopes I’ve peered through have been $5 second-hand ones that didn’t work or weren’t operated correctly. I have seen a solar eclipse though. My high school let everyone outside, mid-day, to see the solar eclipse in the 90s. Anyway. The planetarium had two telescopes, and they were a lot more than $5. They were with the wait, and not only that, a giant falling star shot directly between the two planets (they looked like stars in the sky) while we (about 100 people) waited for our turns. Everyone went “Oooo” like a Gary Larsen cartoon. What brings people together: planets and meteors.

Afterwards, in the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of these weird, weird things on the parking lot ground. They looked like baseball-sized brains. If you stepped on them, they squished in a splotchy, uncomfortable way. One post to Reddit (although I could have just Googled but what the hell) later, I found out it’s the fruit of the Osage orange tree.

Biologists believe that the large fruits evolved to be eaten and dispersed by the large herbivores, such as mastodons, which lived on our continent only 20,000–30,000 years ago.

Missouri Department of Conservation

Although I’m not in Missouri.

A Walk in the Park

After watching that mushroom show on Netflix, I wanted to visit the park to see if I could find any.

Fall colors
These are actually slime molds! Slime molds have a terrible name but they are incredibly fascinating (I’ll do a post on on them in the future).
This slime mold is known as wolf’s milk (the pink blobs).
More wolf’s milk
These look like some kind of berries, but I really don’t know what they are.
He (she?) jumped as I pressed the button!
This one was squished underneath the bark, which was peeled off
These are new growths whose caps hadn’t flared out yet

Fart Squirrel

Over the summer my mom found that some animal dug holes/tunnels under our house. Eventually someone spied said animal and identified it as a hedgehog or woodchuck (big, brown, furry angry looking creature). Then my sister brought a trap over to the house and we ended up catching 3 small ones, 2 of which my brother-in-law took 30 miles away to be let go. The 3rd one died before he was able to come get it. Then all was quiet, until the morning of 9/9/22.

While my mom stood there in shock, I yelled that it was a SKUNK and that if it sprayed on her, she’d be bathing in tomato juice for a week. (Is that how you get rid of skunk smell?) When we told my sister, she just about died laughing… And sent her husband to just let it go. I hope it’s a smart example of its species and doesn’t get caught again. If not, there’s an increasing possibility that someone in my family will get a blast of one of nature’s special perfumes.

A Word About Boston Streets

Boston, especially in Cambridge right next to Hahhhvahhrd, is beautiful. It was nice feeling safe enough to walk around at night every night along with tons of other pedestrians. Using Harvard Yard as a short-cut to get to Harvard Square, literally walking around on campus, brought me back 20 years to my college days.

Driving in Boston and its vicinity, however, was a nightmare. I swear that Boston city streets look like one of those particle pathways:

Credit: starsandspirals/flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

GPS was on, but it usually said things like “Use the right hand lane to turn left at…” and by that time… a turn was mistakenly missed and the car got force-merged somewhere else.

This picture was an example of an EASY intersection. Elsewhere, there were roundabouts. I don’t know why Europeans are good at roundabouts but Americans seem never to be able to adapt. On the positive side, I got to see a lot of areas of Boston, by accident.

Overwhelming amount of angles and traffic lights.

This picture is of the type of intersection of all roads that lead everywhere. Also, the image in the GPS was never clear enough – it showed a thick line until the last second, and if you happened to be in the wrong lane when the GPS zoomed in to show the actual turn, it’s too late.

A Small Afternoon Jaunt

A visit to a small town on an incredibly beautiful day.

A really cute section of town with small indie stores that sell odds and ends.
There was a swimming area further down.
There was a teeny tiny amusement park for what looks like ages 6 and under. That clown garbage can was slightly frightening.
Little rocket ship ride.
A tiny merry go round. The only amusement park we wanted to go to is a 6 hour drive away, and we decided (I guess) to wait until next year. There are adult sized amusement parks in our vicinity but they’ve lost their luster years ago.

Photo dump

We had some visitors once…
When you’re stuck and can’t find a good foothold
Too bad they don’t let you climb to the crow’s nest
Life rule: when in doubt, always choose chocolate!
The modern girls’ playroom.
Harvard: where people play chess at night for fun!
This is what happens when you let basil grow and grow and grow and grow…
10-year-old learning to crochet
Trash panda visiting my neighbor’s hot mess of a deck renovation

Workouts in the last month

Not including the climbing days and any walking/hiking. Also, I went to the Boston area to tour the climbing gyms in that area and those weren’t included either, but I’ll include a picture that captures what physical activity I did.

Climbing gym 1
Another climbing gym
Lots of walking (because we took the subway)
I was at my sister’s house (house sitting) and tried her spin bike, but the seat screw loosened and the seat started wobbling everywhere. I went to a nearby gym instead but didn’t bring my heart monitor.
At the gym near my sister’s house… A great workout!

Blueberries and cream cookies

I used Christina Tosi’s recipe.

It calls for dried blueberries. I had fresh blueberries because it’s summer and they’re in season. My mom has a dehydrator. Little did I know, it took the dehydrator 18 hours to dry a pint and a half blueberries HALFWAY. 18 HOURS. So I said, F*** that, and put them in the toaster oven at 225°F for 5 hours and I got my cup of dried blueberries. The rest of the recipe was at least easy to get.

Since I had a bad start to cookies by baking them flat, touching, and burnt a couple of times, I shaved off 25°F from the official temp. I baked mine at 325°F for 15 minutes and they turned out golden tan with a chewy middle. And they did NOT flatten out to the extent that they touched each other! I also hand mixed in the milk crumb and blueberries instead of using the mixer.

Speaking of milk crumb, it is delicious on its own. I’m attempting to make vanilla protein milk crumbs with rolled oats (original recipe plus vanilla protein powder, rolled oats, and a tsp of milk), so I don’t have as much of a guilt trip, but we’ll see.