Bodleian.

Today I visited my town's sparkly new public library. Well, it was. Sparkly and new, that is. I don't like it, though, and I probably never will, because it's not the library I grew up with. The library I spent my childhood in had creaky stairs, a balcony, secret alcoves, and an ungodly musty smell. There was a door at the back of one of the darker stacks that had a little window on it that looked like the porthole on a submarine. To this day, I have no idea what the hell that was. And no, the new library doesn't have it.

The new library is bright and clean and environmentally friendly. You won't get cancer from breathing too close to the walls. What kind of library is that?

At least it still has books in it - although I was very disappointed to find where my favorite books had been stacked. When I was in middle school, my favorite section of the library just happened to be where my favorite books were. They were the supernatural/Nostradamus/ paranormal shit books - you know, the kind of stuff I just snarked all over the History Channel for featuring. In any case, those books used to be housed in this one musty corner of the second floor. The one time that my parents thought my friend and I were lost and ended up searching for hours for us, we were hanging out there, reading.

Now that group of books is right in the middle of a bunch of stacks that are open on each end. There's no place to hide in there at all, and it's well-lit. You can even see the book titles without squinting.

Meh, whatever. It's not as though I really go to the public library anymore - not to hang out, anyway. Nowadays I get my books and leave. At school, on the other hand - the library is a fine place to hang out for four or five hours at a time. My school library is a proper library, with decor that hasn't been updated since 1971 and chairs that are made of asbestos. I don't know if you could convince me that any library on Earth is better, but I'm willing to give the Bodleian a chance.


Latin Word of the Day: feles, felis, f., cat.

Dyckman.

We went to the Hudson River Museum today. The clouds overhead looked quite fetching.


Inside, there was an exhibit all about the DUTCH. My ancestors were among those Dutch who colonized Manhattan and all that. I wandered around the museum looking for any artifacts connected to my most prominent Dutch ancestor, Wolfert van Couwenhoven. I didn't find anything, but I did find some papers and pictures about another Dutch ancestor of mine, Jan Dyckman. And guess what Jan's first wife's name was? Madeline.

Another fun fact: Jan Dyckman's grandson, William Dyckman, built what is today the last surviving Revolutionary War era house in Manhattan - Dyckman House, which is now a museum.

This is not Dyckman House:


It's the Glenview Mansion, which was built in 1877 and is now part of the Hudson River Museum.

And here's the Hudson River:


Later on we trundled home to eat this:


Homemade bread, homemade quiche with vegetables from our garden, and acorn squash from the local farm stand. And no, I didn't cook any of it. My dad did.

Latin Word of the Day: caesus, -i, m., cheese. It seemed appropriate.

Growing up.

Remember the baby chickies in this post? They're all big and awkward now. They look just like small chickens, but they still cheep like baby chicks.



Check out these four that were hanging out together:


Outside, their parents were running around and doing all sorts of naughty chickeny things.




I really have nothing interesting to say about this, so I thought I'd tell you about my plans to have a Latin Word of the Day starting, well, today, and continuing until I leave for Oxford. You see, I've recently started refreshing my memory of Latin (i.e., learning everything over again) in preparation for the next semester. I thought it might be fun to include you in it.

And here's a fun fact about Latin: even though Latin is a so-called dead language, there are Latin words for modern things like computers, cars, etc. Somebody keeps making them up, because God forbid that the Pope not be able to publicly condemn us all for our internet porn usage in his favorite language.

Moving on ... I have further proof that my "cat," Teto, is in fact an alien. I mean, sometimes she really does look like a cat ... but then she'll surprise you with her alien powers. Look at this ...

Cat:


Alien!


And this ...

Cat:


CLEARLY AN ALIEN!

Cat type.

This is what happened yesterday.

Rain, rain:



Chicken wrap:


Pizza with genetic mosaicism:



Bonus picture: This is the only way you can use a computer in our family.

Life, the universe, and everything else you never wanted to know about but is on the History Channel anyway.

I've been watching the History Channel "The Universe" show on Hulu. It's pretty good for a History Channel show. I really shouldn't scoff at the History Channel like that; I watched countless hours of it when I was younger. Actually, that's how I know that about 70% of the History Channel's programming is about aliens and/or Nostradamus. Yes, back in my day I watched hours and hours of "true stories" of how "aliens" came to Earth on their "spaceships" and "abducted" "people" (I'll leave it up to you to decide which - if any - of those quotations marks is appropriate). Each show was immediately followed by a different show all about how Nostradamus predicted 9/11 using Sudoku. On the History Channel. Don't blame me for buying into it; I was young. And the History Channel was my way of experiencing the effects of drugs (primarily those with hallucinogenic properties) without actually using any of them.

That being said ... PANTS. I got them today. They're from J. Crew and I love them very much.



ANYWAY. "The Universe" is, as I said, actually pretty good, despite the fact that it has less to do with that "history" thing and more to do with that "astronomy" thing. But there isn't an Astronomy Channel as far as I know, so what else were they going to do with it? There's no Complete Nutbag Channel* either, which I guess explains the History Channel's other offerings. It's just a natural haven for the strange and hideously absurd creatures that don't fit in with the rest of society ... like the Land of Misfit Toys ... or the dungeons underneath an animal testing facility next to a nuclear power plant ... or Sarah Lawrence College.




*OH WAIT YES THERE IS IT'S CALLED FOX NEWS.

Too easy?

Stone Barns.

Today I finally got to visit the Stone Barns. I love the scenery and the animals and the architecture there, but today I was mainly in it for the food.

Behold: bread with goat cheese and heaps of vegetables on top.



Cookie.

After the food, I was able to walk around and observe the 3590835 bees in the area without distraction. This is a picture of the courtyard:


And these are the bees:



These are pretty flowers:



And these are two butterflies, one of which was doing what I have named "the sexy dance" for the other one. It kept flapping its wings in this sexy way, you see. If butterflies could talk, it would have been saying, "Hey, baby."


More of the architecture:


The walkway:


Fields:


Chickens coops:

Knit Knit Knit Knit.

Today I got offered a job! I was at the yarn store and the lady there who knows me by name because I've been there 2490824 times asked if I was at school, because they were looking for someone to work there on the weekends. Unfortunately, I already have a job, and things are going to be so hectic in the next few weeks preparing to go abroad that I don't think I could juggle two.

Still, it would be fun to work in a yarn store. Maybe next year, although who knows what I'll be doing by then? All I know is what I'm doing for the next few weeks. Preparing, working, and knitting. How many hand-knitted sweaters must you bring to Oxford? The answer is many.

This is what I wore to work today:


[Exciting, I know. And I have so many sweaters to wear, and new pants. I miss winter.]

And this is what Mermy and I had for lunch. We go to this same place all the time, where one of us gets pasta with pesto cream sauce and the other gets a chicken panini. Then we split them both. Actually, the pasta we split double because we ask for only a half a portion of it to begin with. Their portions are huge.


Reading this made me realize that it will be very, very bad if I can't find myself a good chicken sandwich in Oxford. I mean, that's practically all I eat. Chicken sandwich, chicken wrap ... turkey sandwich, turkey wrap ... cereal, eggs, toast, and homemade pizzas ... I am going to have to figure out how to make my own pizzas now. God help me, I simply cannot eat other people's pizzas.

Teto time.

The following is a brief glimpse into the mind of a Teto.


I love you.


I love the couch.


I am Teto, Queen of all Tetos.


Lick lick lick lick


Lick lick lick lick


Lick lick lick lick


Lick lick lick lick


LICK LICK LICK LICK


Sleep.


Poke.


Foot rub.


QUEEN OF TETOS.


Fur [Fin].