Fenway Garden

Yesterday I went to small photo exhibit which had the work of my high school photo teacher. I quickly reverted to how awkward I was back then; felt odd in my body and stilted in conversation. Almost funny.

Now I'm home and making dinner. Most of today I walked Boston with Anna: the Christian Church of Science was a strange place to stop on our way to the MFA's exhibit on The Summer of Love (hyper-saturated posters and black and white photos from San Francisco)

self portrait in pot of rice

The best part of the day though, by far, was going by this expansive garden called The Fenway Garden Society. Hundreds of plots, each curated in a different way: some lovingly cultivated flowers, others have very pragmatic vegetable plots, still others have little fountains and arched veins over benches, some with Asian influences with lily-pads and bamboo, others European down to little bird baths (and a very striking bird dancing around the edge) and even spruce and other trees. And it's sizable, so you can walk up and down the rows and feel lost in the little worlds: passed a man reading a book, Labrador by his side, an older couple watering their garden and a young woman watering hers across the path, one garden on the edge audibly buzzing from bees attracted to spearmint.

Not Purple

The other night I had a dream and what I remember from it was the empty stone whales. They were life-size, and sometimes they would fill up with water and bacteria and drown, but the new ones and the ones with tops that were closed well floated, even though they were stone, because they where filled with air inside. It was a giant park. I was looking at it from above and there was a really clear river flowing through, but it wasn't horizontal, it went up, like solid bricks of water, somewhat like an aquarium without glass. There was beautiful coral and seaweed growing in the river, and a boardwalk throughout the park. I also remember some friends taking funny photos in a bathroom; making faces at the camera and standing in ridiculous poses, but I only remember Louisa being there, though I know there were more. She was wearing a costume, it was black and red. Also I'm pretty sure CIA agents were somehow involved, or maybe the mafia.


Also Inka helped me dye my hair. Osya and I went to sleep over at their house and that night we went to the pharmacy to get dye. The only purple dye they had was "Spalt".
1) Bleach for an hour (not all my hair, there was only enough in the bottle to cover about a third)
2) Dye it in "Lusty Lavender" for an hour (there wasn't enough bleach to cover all my hair)
3) Wash it out and watch most of the dye come out (it didn't stick)
4) Sleep
5) Decide if I want to keep the pink, copper and natural hair (it was still nice, but I was set on purple)
6) Bleach/Dye with Llongueras "Violin" which Inka had brought from Spain for an hour (even though it said 35 min)
7) Wash it out.

It still isn't purple. 









































Today nothing exciting happened; had my weight and height measured, blood taken and answered a bunch of questions. Physical. Haven't had one since before college. I also met with Eames at Copley yesterday and we got froyo at the Red Mango and walked around Newbury Street (that's when the photo is from.)

Tonight is the third (and last) night of filming with Sara and a few of her friends. We have been shooting at the Newton Library from library closing time to when the lights go out (9-12) about four kids who are meeting up during the summer after being at college for a year. They grew up in a really Christian town and there is a whole thing set up around strawberry cigarillos (thin cigar; no filter and you aren't supposed to inhale.) as a rather pathetic attempt to be cool.  I play the girl girl who brings the cigarillos and is trying to convince everyone that "we are the same people we used to be...just cooler"

hot in the water.

Hannah and I went to the supermarket to get food for our trip to the lake with two of her high school friends. Even there, it was incredibly hot, but it gave us something to do (like swim...at gawk at small children, and look at the fish.)

(I don't remember quite the order of the rest of the events, because I guess sometimes I have an incredibly short memory.  maybe. maybe its all in place.also at some point we watched an animated film The Illusionist and Le combat dans l'ile)

I think it was Sunday that we went to the nature center where Hannah had been organizing archives and the such. We saw a white egret and a couple of blue herons. We were absolutely wiped after that (at least I was), so we went and ate and then went to a Vietnamese restaurant. It had finally started to drizzle, but not enough to break the heat spell and humidity. There was also a street fair, but it broke up at the first hint of rain, and it was very small.

Monday we intended to go to the pool, but instead danced in the sprinklers in front of the library, stared at the sky in the park, ate an an ice cream parlor, and then went to her grandparents house. Her grandparents are lovely. We talked for a spell and then went to the garden, were we collected some corn and bell pepper and jalapenos and basil from the garden for dinner.

We made some sort of middle ground between green salsa and guacamole, it was really good. :

2 cloves garlic

2 jalapeno peppers (it can defiantly hold more)

lemon juice

cilantro (we had Asian cilantro from the garden)
1 avocado

1 small green bell pepper

1/2 tomato

1 scallion

salt

Dinner was the fresh picked corn, burgers (my first ever-yes, yes, I know, it's strange), and smores for desert. (mmm...caramelized fluffed corn-syrup and melted dark chocolate, so good)

The next day we snuck me into a Columbia library (twice) so Hannah could do some work for her class. Lunch was for some reason fantastic-I guess I was a lot hungrier than I thought I was when we came around to it, but that bagel with olive cream cheese and orange juice and mochi was delicious.

And then I bought a ticket to Sloutsberg to visit the Kuznetsovi. Misha and Diniska and I played tennis-in the rain, with dead balls. Which made it so much easier because everything was so much slower, I felt like a beast. And then the next day we went swimming with , and somehow eating ice cream while Sasha and Misha and I waited for the bus was perfect.

Also I had a dream I was an art teacher at my high school.

And today Osya came back from Israel! He has a tan (well...a tan to the extent him and I get tans) and he's happy :)

Paint Dance

Back from a party at Eloosha's. I took the 5:32 train in, because it was the one that arrived the closest to 8 (when people where actually invited). He wasn't home yet, but another kid who came back from college with him was (he lives in Mississippi and is going back to New Haven take a summer class....so going home didn't make sense).
I came in and started cleaning, because apparently that's what I do? Eloosha's parents and sister are in Europe right now, so I loaded the dishwasher and cleaned of the table and...yeah. The Mississippi kid tried helping but didn't know what to do and I didn't want to boss him around and it was wonderfully awkward.
Cleaning was so worth the reaction. Eloosha entered through the back door, took a couple steps. Stopped in his tracks, started looking around, and had a 'why is clean?' expression on his face. I was trying not to break out laughing on the couch.
Eventually Eloosha's hs friends came. For a bit it was just me...and like, 5 guys I've met twice before but don't know. So. Awkward. I just sat silently eating chips. Thankfully Yulka came and saved me. And then other girls that I also kinda know but who I'm less awkward with than with the boys.

I also painted about have of my parents room today (they got new tiles, now I'm repainting so that I can take their place sleeping in the basement instead of the bunked bed.)
Yulka and I invented a new 'painting the wall' dance move. too cool.

And my grandmother, youngest brother and I planted some petunias (white and pink) by the azalea.

Fluff and Green

Adrienne and her mother and siblings came by yesterday :) and the bigtooth aspen across from the house is going crazy.

Jobs: I'm sure many people are familiar with Craigslist, and all it's interesting listings. I found:
a) egg donor. Hey, guess what I did this summer guys? I made 7 grand selling my eggs. But totally useless in terms of career development/putting on a resume










(steal head: pan fried, served cold with wasabi, white rice, bread with lebane and chopped green onion my brother has been growing, tomatoes with a curly parsy, lemon, olive oil and salt dressing, topped with walnuts. too good)


b) 3 year full time nanny
c) Hunter-Killer
"...The income potential for 6 months of work will allow you to retire. We are literally talking of earning in excess of $5 million. (This is not a typo.)

You do not need to have a specific industry background or to have mastered any specific domain knowledge; you simply need to know how to sell. Anyone smart enough (if you're not exceptionally intelligent, please do not apply) to be hired by us will be able to learn the necessary legal and finance knowledge in a few weeks.

No doubt you are thinking, "This is too good to be true, what is the catch?" Actually, it is not too good to be true for the right individual. (For everyone else, it is a pipe dream, a total fantasy.) The individual we need is a pro-active hunter-killer, a closer, someone who can follow through, who knows how to get things done, someone who kicks ass... "

I'm sure there are a lot of other wonderful listings as well. I applied to an internship 3 min walk from Harvard Sq.

My grandmother and I gardened for a bit today-we planted a light purple azalea plant that's been standing in the plastic pot it came in since last summer. I trimmed the lilacs

And then the entire family went to Fruitland for a walk, and looked at the sculptures, even though it's not officially open yet.

Past couple weeks...

Matriculation is tomorrow
I will no longer be pseudo-student and shall become full-fledged freshman
We had a very short class-orientation thing where they told us how to get classes ect. It sounds stressful.

Transfer students arrived today. I was thinking about how strange it would be to transfer here. Also; I've noticed that, aside from foreigners, nobody really has accents. I don't have a Boston accent. Lauren doesn't have a Tennessee accent. Madlin doesn't have a Texas accent. And even those from other countries; D is in the states for the first time, but she doesn't have strong Vietnamese accent.

What else. Two weeks ago I first went to the
community garden after going to the waterfall. We ate tomatoes and raspberries and strawberries and smelled the basil.
Bard also had a Rocky Horror bonanza on Friday the 13th, but it wasn't as enjoyable as when I went with my friends in Harvard Sq. a few years back. I also went fire-walking, which sounds a lot more badass than it is. And we have had two nail-polish parties with some of the girls in my dorm. We had a dorm bonding thing with pancakes. It was the first time I had homemade pancakes. One of the counselors, Audrey, was with us, and the next day she brought tomatoes and zucchini and squash from the community garden. Sooooo good. We've gone to pick some more since, eating it as a second dinner with rice.

I also got to see my friends and family this weekend. I was really exhausted, but it was still nice to get so many hugs and kisses and walk around holding hands and catching up on life.

photos: random couch..., cabbage, Maximilien playing upright bass, Hannah on a swing.