Sunday, February 22, 2009

Signs of Spring


Despite today's bitter cold and our frosty noses and finger tips, there are tiny signs of spring creeping along.


These are all from our hike this afternoon at the Jefferson trails. Everyone we passed was bundled up, but we must have missed the memo. Or we're just thinking about life in Burlington and bucking up a little.

Experiments in budding photography...


And, of course, maybe the best sign of all that spring is approaching:

Nom nom nom. ;-)

Another Triumphant Return

Chinese food. Not exactly home cookin' from the Machine Shed, but pretty nice in its own way. After a whirlwind (and it was blustery!) visit to Burlington, VT, it was nice to meet up with the folks and enjoy some water chestnuts, vegetarian egg rolls, and the like.




JFK is a place that, oddly enough, was rather pleasant to spend time in. My flight outta there was delayed again and again, though I didn't mind. There was a Balduccis, as well as a nice kiosk where one could "recharge" both literally and metaphorically. I rocked the Bose acoustic noise-canceling headphones and the MacBook, I took miniature treks to different departure gates. I haven't seen Hanks in The Terminal, though I felt a kinship with his weirdo Eastern European character. (Thanks, in no small part I am sure, to my recently revealed Prussian ancestry...)

The actual visit in VT was ushered in by a miraculous golden sunrise over the snowy frozen lake and mountains. Needless to say, it was pretty darn beautiful. I wish I had taken the camera...
I hadn't realized just how much I was missing the snow until, well, I saw it again.

Meeting with faculty was pleasant, on the whole. There were a few times that I felt strangely out-of-synch and uncommunicative, though my take on that suggests the professional hazards of overspecialization were more to blame than my stammering, hemming and hawing, etc. Because, really, I was brilliant. ;)

Meg was a great sport about the whole thing, making last-minute arrangements and providing me with necessary rides, packing help--priceless. I highly recommend her!

Our drive back to our apartment was enriched by my impulse purchase of Mike and Ike's at the airport store. Ain't nothin' like a little sugar and vitamin C after a long day of jawing, flying, and marveling at the New England Winter.