all the news that isn't

Due to the lack of updates throughout the weekend, this one’s gonna be a biggie! Andrea got in quite later than expected, apparently due to weather. Adrienne met as at WBGO, and we grabbed a bit and headed to see the New Jersey Ironmen soccer game. They’re pretty bad. But it was still fun.

Saturday we got a pretty late start, read about it and more after the jump.

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Though I am working in another country right now. Just for a few days. WBGO is broadcasting live from the International Association for Jazz Education conference, through tomorrow. We’ve got some nice music posted, pics, and other news. Check it out!

One of the joys of small-apartment living is finding places to put stuff. We have some shelves on our bathroom wall, on top of which we store our toilet paper. I just pulled out the bottom middle one. Will have to do everything I can to force Adrienne to have to take the next ‘turn’…

🙂

The night before last I vaguely remember waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of a cat running all over the apartment. It’s not entirely uncommon for Celli to go a little crazy in the night hours, so I though nothing of it, until I got up the next morning:

She’d literally been back and forth, around bed and chair legs, unwinding a roll of yarn. And Adrienne had just rolled that one up, too. I guess we’ll learn our lesson!

Oh the fun of living in the city…

We have a washing machine and dryer in the basement of our 4-unit building, but elect to use the laundromat just around the corner as it is about half-price (but only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when they take 25-cents off the price of a wash). Since we live so close, we typically go home and don’t supervise the process.

Tonight we put the wash in and went on a walk to drop off the rent check and get some cat food. We came back and Adrienne transferred the wash to two dryers. About 35 minutes later we both go back to pick up both loads. Needless to say, one is there, but the other dryer is empty. After looking all around, we consult with the helpful manager, who goes through security tape and helps us identify the culprit, a middle-aged woman. The manager says he’ll keep an eye out for her, though it’s the first time he’s seen her. We leave after giving him out phone number.

About 20 minutes later we get a call – a young boy has dropped off our clothes (in the trash bag – it appears to be fresh), saying his mother absent-mindedly took the clothes.

Now we have to return the favor… and return some of their clothes that got mixed in with ours!

Maybe one day when we grow up we’ll own our very own washer and dryer!

Been a while since the last post, so we need to catch up. First is a couple pictures of Easter dinner. We got a free 10-lb. ham from the grocery store, so we cooked ‘er up. That was two weeks ago. We froze half of it. We’ve still got some in the fridge.

Here’s the simple dinner. We whipped up some twice-baked potatoes – the first time Adrienne had had them.

We had some pineapple left over from the ham (which had a mustard-pineapple glaze courtesy of our great Gourmet magazine cookbook – highly recommended), and no dessert plans, until it occurred to me we had all the makings (well, minus the maraschino cherries) of pineapple upside cake.

So that was Easter.

Next, a gratuitous picture of cute Celli, resting with her little Cherry-ball (it’s just a red ball with a stem on it) that she likes to chase.

And just for equal time, a cute pic of Dudley doing what he does best.

So now we’re up to this weekend. Weather finally turned nice after our little Nor’easter, and we heard the cherry blossoms were out. Just north and west of Newark (where I work, which is west of JC where we live) is Branch Brook park, a relatively skinny but long park that follows a brook, and years ago someone (I forget who) had the wisdom to plant a lot of Cherry Blossom trees. If you’ve been to DC in the springtime you probably are familiar. (The Oregon valley – Portland and Salem – has a good deal of Cherry Blossom trees as well.) But Branch Brook Park actually has more cherry blossom trees than DC. And they’ve got signs up saying they’re planting 2,000 more.

So that’s enough typing. Let’s get to the pics:

It was a beautiful day, and nice to get out on the bikes. Though both of us (ok, maybe more me) are dreaming of getting some nice folding bikes, which would make it a lot easier to traverse the maze of public transportation.

Tomorrow’s supposed to be nice as well. Hope you all get a chance to enjoy it if it’s nice where you are-

The parents came out last weekend, Thursday night to Monday morning. Saw the sights, got a taste of chez david. First order of business was a trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

A view inside the main hall at Ellis Island, where thousands of people were processed per day.

A view of the city from just outside the main building at Ellis Island.

Some Tallaksens passed through.

We also went to Top of the Rock – the top of Rockefeller Center, where you have a good view of most things – including central park and opposite it (facing south), the Empire State Building.

That’s the end of the pictures I took. Friday night we went to see The Producers, starring Tony Danza. Saturday we hung around JC and went into the city for a couple hours, checking out the Chelsea area.

Sunday morning, we got up early to see the taping of The Today show.

Then we walked up through Central Park and down through the Upper West Side. Then we took the train out to near Jersey suburbs for more walking in the town that Adrienne and I first stayed at when we got here, and a tasty italian meal.

Took the long way home through the city, walking through Macy’s (billed as the world’s largest store). Then back on the train to home. Where we let the feet rest before heading to bed, so we could get up in time to get out the door to catch a 9:20 flight. A nice but exhausting weekend.

Hey everybody. So I had a couple pictures I took this weekend that I was going to share. But then I thought – instead of just plain emailing them, wouldn’t it be cool if I put them up in a blog. And I do have 1and1 webspace, so I looked into it – they have an automatic blog tool that makes it very easy. I set it up, only to discover that it takes over your whole domain. Not cool. So I looked into wordpress, and went ahead and setup a blog in a subdirectory. Pretty cool. So now I’m learning how this thing uploads pictures (the original goal all along).

It seems I’ve figured it out. One of Saturday’s first goals was to try making restaurant-size pancakes, now that I could with my lodge grill/griddle. Turned out pretty well, see above!

It reached 57 on Saturday, so we cranked the windows open for the kitties.

And Adrienne, beside being sick, had good reason to sleep in on Sunday.

Another project was to make a new brunswick stew in the slow cooker. It called for some chicken. As we learned, it might not be a bad idea to double check weights and prices at the grocery store…

Ok, that’s it for this, the first post! Happy weekend!