Fellows about town

I forgot to mention that a couple weekends ago the Knight Fellows hit the town. We went to a dinner at Anthony's Pier 4, a Boston waterfront institution. It's overpriced and definitely is not for foodies. On the other hand, it is very old school and feels like you've stepped back into post WWII Boston history. All the waiters are men and dress like captains on a cruise ship, the women wear maid costumes err...uniforms and handle tasks like pouring water and refreshing bread. The walls are lined with old photos of celebs posing with Anthony's family during a visit: The Kennedys, Bobby Orr, John Denver, Elizabeth Taylor, Emperor of Japan, etc.

These pics were taken at Sevens - the only bar we could find in Beacon Hill with enough room for all of us. Would I recommend this bar? Welll...if you happen to be in Beacon Hill, in need of a beer and your musical taste is limited to AC/DC, Cheap Trick, and hair bands from the 80's, this is your place.

BTW, the new fellows have been announced.

Spring has arrrived

Keith has a few more weeks of classes, but I'm done (sadly). On my last day of class the weather was lovely and the trees seemed to have finally awakened from their winter hibernation. On one street in particular the trees are so laden with blossoms that they bend over the sidewalks and create a lovely canopy under which to walk.

BTW: tonight Miles is on a sleepover at his friends' house, so Keith and I caught Persepolis at the Somerville theater. It's a sparely animated film about a young girl coming of age during the Iranian revolution. It's definitely worth catching if you have a chance.

Back to business

Last week was Miles' spring break and my parents were in town. We capitalized on the fantastic weather and did mega-sightseeing. It was a great week! The weather was sunny and hot until just after my parents' flight took off. Then it was back to the rain and cold.

ROFL.con was on the MIT campus this weekend. So, while I was giving my parents a tour of MIT we caught a glimpse of Tron Guy.

Patriot's Day in Lexington/Concord

Last Saturday (April 19) we took in the re-enactment of the Colonist/Redcoat skirmishes along Battle Road (now in Minute Man National Park) following the conflict at the North Bridge in Concord. I guess it was technically a demonstration because people "die" in re-enactments. And apparently people aren't allowed to "die" on National Park property except for re-enactments that occur on the actual anniversary.

Master Procastinator

If you had asked me a few days ago to identify the master procrastinator, I would have pointed to myself. But yesterday that changed. As I was walking to class, I found that a true master lives right here on our block. After all, only the most accomplished procrastinator sets their Christmas tree out for garbage collection in the middle of April!

En Garde!

Snapped this pic of Miles in fencing class today. He's in the middle of his second session and he's starting to look good out there. He's interested enough that he wants to like to go to a fencing summer camp when we get back to Seattle. At least that's what he says this week.

Miles meets Ann Downer (author of Hatching Magic)

Miles and I have been lucky to participate in a wonderful Mother/Son book group since September. Our last book was a fantasy book set in Cambridge called "Hatching Magic".

Ann Downer, the author, very graciously came to our book club meeting and answered everyone's questions about the book. She showed us her thick, marked up manuscripts and walked us through the writing and editing process. It was so interesting (and it should quiet any whining about editing drafts at school). Then, she read from her new book and gave everyone a free copy...and she signed them too.

Miles thoroughly enjoyed "Hatching Magic", so Ann's visit will be quite a memory for some time.

Here's Ann personalizing and signing the books.


The boys making dragons and dragon eggs out of fimo clay.

Baldwin Elementary - your source for breaking celebrity news

On our walk home, Miles informed me that Hannah Montana lip syncs. Not only that, it turns out that her granny is actually the one doing all the singing. Hannah is just the front.

Miles says this explains why Hannah's voice is so "croaky". This came straight from Lily in Miles class; she is apparently a very knowledgable source. Remember, you heard it here first.

April Fool's Dinner

April Fool's Dinner, when nothing is what it seems, is one of Miles' favorite traditions. Can you tell what we had for dessert last night? Answer here (roll your mouse over the image to see the notes).

Spring break

Don't worry, no jello wrestling here. Instead of following the lead of the collegiate crowd, we hit DC and Baltimore with a throng of jr. high and high school groups. Keith spent a few days doing some research at the NIH. Miles and I walked around DC for a day. The cherry blossoms were in bloom and it was suprisingly warm.

Miles snapped this picture of me in front of the Capitol Building. I really was that blurry that day!


Then it was off to Baltimore to spend the weekend with Keith's brother Jeff's family. We had such a fun time. Miles loves nothing more than long visits with his cousins. Thanks Jeff and Tikva for having us stay with you and for all the lovely meals. Special thanks to Emuna who took so many great photos.

Origami at MIT

Here are a couple of the entries from this year's origami contest at MIT. There were a few other interesting creations, but the way they were displayed made them hard to photograph.

Career counseling from Miles

Miles:  Hey Mom, I know a job you could do when we get home.
Beth:    Great -- tell me more.
Miles:  You could be a reverse psychologist.

Miles' newest invention...

..."The Mustache Mirror". It gives you the best of both worlds -- personal expression with facial hair minus all that bothersome grooming.

Meeting Noam

Sometimes, for example on the rare occasion when you get to meet and coverse with Noam Chomsky, you only get one shot at a picture. Sometimes you have to entrust your half-blind friend with taking that shot. And sometimes you forget to set the camera up in advance to ensure a good photo. Sometimes all of these circumstances converge ...and this is what you get. A blurry under-exposed picture of Keith and Noam Chomsky shaking hands.

Day at the sugar house/farm

Today we went to the Drumlin Farm to check out the sugar house. They walked us through the process of tapping maples and boiling the sap down to syrup. I didn't realize that it takes 40 buckets of maple sap to make one bucket of syrup!

Miles snapped a picture of these sweet lambs that are just a few weeks old. There were also some very new baby goats huddling under a heat lamp in the barn and tiny baby mice. There were quite a few animal babies and from the looks of it there soon will be many more. Spring must be close, despite all the snow.


On an unrelated note: Last week, Miles shot this image of the lunar eclipse. Pretty nice for a beginner with a beginner camera!

Keith's award

Forgot to post that on Feb.15, in the spectacular Boston Museum of Fine Art, Keith was presented with an award for excellence in science reporting from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

There was no flash photography allowed due to the artwork in the room, so I couldn't get any decent shots.

Launch Party

Yesterday was Miles' birthday party. Bonnie of Children's Technology Workshop did a great job leading a squirmy crew of boys through the process and the physics of building catapults. It's amazing what chaos a small band of 8-9 year old boys can generate! They quickly jumped into modifying their new creations with thicker rubberbands...or more of them to get more power. As you can imagine, they wanted to launch wet sponges, grapes, stuffed animals, etc.

Everyone got mustaches in their goody bags and looked great in them, but somehow we didn't manage to get many good shots. Here's one of Miles in a rather distinguished looking one.


Oh and here's a snap of Miles' teacher leading the class in singing Happy Birthday when we brought in cupcakes. It happened to be Pajama Day.

Birthday Boy

Today we celebrated Miles' birthday with a low-key family celebration. Next weekend is his party with his friends -- catapults will be involved. Should prove exciting!

This picture was taken with his new camera courtesy of Nana. He loved all his gifts from Grandma and Grandpa, too, and is itching to put them to use.

Meet our guitar teacher Sam

Miles and I just started taking guitar lessons with Sam, in his wild apartment featured in the video. When we bought Miles' guitar before our first lesson and mentioned our teacher's name in the shop, everyone smiled and said, "Moooo". Now we understand. His apartment has even more features now and HGTV did a little piece on it.

I knew we had found the right guy when during the lesson Miles was trying to be a bit too clever...and Sam looked at me and said, "Don't worry, I can 'out-Miles' Miles."

Happy Valentine's Day

Snapped these Jim Dine hearts at the DeCordova Museum last weekend. Hope your day is sweet!

DeCordova Museum

On Saturday we traced, for a little while, the route of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Amazing to see the actual routes and sites. We spent much more time though at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln. Just as we started to step outside to view the sculture garden, the snow clouds started unloading. Here are some pics from our snowy visit.

Costa Rican memories

One of the secret perks of this fellowship is a “field-trip” to Costa Rica. Such hardship! It’s frequently described as a working trip, and indeed, it was heavily scheduled. But this is the kind of work anyone could get used to. We spent a full-day learning about Costa Rica’s national health-care system, which, as they say, allows a 3rd-world economy to achieve 1st-world health standards. It’s not perfect, and not directly applicable to the U.S. But it was pretty interesting to see what a strict public-health focus can achieve. They still have lots of grumbling about the taxes, and those who are healthy feel they shouldn’t have to pay so much.

The more glamorous part of the trip took us first to an active volcano, called Arenal. It's one of the most active in the world, erupting pretty steadily since the late 1960's. We hiked in as far as you are allowed to go, and with binoculars, you can watch boulders tumbling down the flanks, in little bursts all day, every day. At night, if the cloud lifts, it looks like little campfire ashes floating in the blackness. And at any hour, you can hear the crashing thuds.

In the rain forest, highlights included the amazing leaf-cutter ants (yes, bugs – but they have an incredible ecological niche. They fan out, cut off swatches of leaves, and carry them home, where, like farmers, they are harvesting a giant underground fungus, which is the sustenance for the colony. True symbiosis: The fungus only grows when the ants care for it; the ants depend on the fungus. Okay, I’ll stop now.) We went out with a researcher who captures bats at night (we saw four fruit bats and one vampire). They were pretty traumatized by our flashlights, as she held them for us.

And we got a few hours at the beach, the last day, where I rode a surf-board for the first time. Managed to stand up for about two seconds. The rest of the time was spent on marathon bus rides, along the winding mountain highways of Central America.