Loki : Our New Baby

Well, we finally did it! Today we adopted a beautiful four year old, 79 pound, retired racing greyhound. Here is a little video of his first day. Look how skinny he is!!

We found the newest member of our little family through http://www.greyrescue.org, an organization dedicated to saving these sweet and gentle beasts. He has been off the track for about a month , and in a foster home for a week learning a little bit about the life of the common house dog.

The first night had its share of challenges, but everything has worked out so far. After a long stressful car trip (this poor scared dog), a relatively peaceful meeting with Sasha Vinny (hissing and running), and a nervous bladder explosion on the dining room floor, we are finally all lying down for a good nights sleep.

UPDATE :

We have been patiently trying to get these two animals to coexist, and it really seems to be working. The first day featured some hissing, barking, running, and lunging. But by this afternoon I had them sitting next to each other eating turkey out of my hands. At one point they were peacefully sniffing each others faces. I am predicting some interspecies love.

Prague Castle

Guest post by Heather Acord.

Day 3 brings the four of us to the highest point in the city -- Prazsky Hrad. We spent a lot of time in St Vitus's Cathedral, a beautiful example of true Gothic architecture. The homage to St Wenceslas was clear - as was the importance of Charles IV to European history and its documentation. The Castle grounds include the Royal Palace, a convent, a basilica and an adorable little street where the castle guards once lived. These picturesque cottages fell into disrepair and at one point housed poor artisans and poets, including Kafka in the early 1900's. Jeanette's research on the best restaurants in the city comes to fruition once again with a Thai hot spot called Arezenal. Then we headed to a jazz joint off the Old Town Square, U Stari Pani, where we heard a fantastic Czech band Mache Banko Quintet. If you get the opportunity, travel with the Mosick-Irwin duo - they don't disappoint!!

Prague : Fall 2007

The Cast :

Dave and Jeanette (you know us, you love us)

Jeff and Heather (we know them , we love them , the best travel partners ever ....wooohooo!!!)

The Flight : Nice and easy thanks to Tylenol PM and melatonin. Dave looked insane , dressed in his pajamas (Hip hop style track suit) and earplugs , eyemask and neck pillow.

Day 1 : We get dropped of at our apartment building, which much to our suprise was not the Gorgeous , two separate penthouse apartments we had carefully selected after scouring the internets for weeks. Instead , we got a single dingy apartment with two bedrooms and one tiny bathroom and a windowless kitchen. I wont even discuss the bedding. Gross!!

I know , when did we become such snobs?

Well it all worked out, sort of. Jeff and heather moved to a separate apartment down the street,which was so nasty they ended up moving out againt to a nice hotel .

We Stayed in the two bedroom with the gross bedding.

Day 1 (continued)

We had lunch at an amazing Vegetarian Restaurant ( props to Jeanette for all her research!). The most charming thing was that on the menu was the policy : All monks and enlightened ones eat free

Fantastico!!

We spent most of the day dealing with the apartment issues and walking around this stunningly beautiful City. We had a delicious dinner at an Indonesian restaurant and went to bed

DAY 2 :

Let the fun begin !

Travelling with friends is so much fun. At home our lives are so busy and we often end up feeling isolated from our friends and family. Jeff and Heather are two of our closest friends , but we really only see them every month or so at home. It's so refreshing to eat every meal with them and really connect.

We started the day at a beautiful and stlyish cofee shop with croissants, espreso and a cup of molten dark chocolate

and the eating frenzy continues

we head a fantastic brunch at a super hip vegetarian hot spot, where we drank lots of espresso and had one our usual long discussins of current fiscal policy, peak oil , and the coming economic collapse.

Jeff suggested we start the trip off by going to the prague history museum , to put the rest of our sightseeing in some historical perspective

we had a great time at the museum and learned alot, but we left with alot of unanswered questions.

Wikipedia, here we come

more walking , looking, eating

Conratulations Mory and Ildi

.....and a hearty welcome to their beautiful new baby boy Lucas “Luke” Aron Watkins.

Jen and I are so excited that our great friends Mory and Ildi have just had their first child. Luke was born at 9:12am on Saturday, June 9^th, 2007. Weighing in at just about 8 lbs Luke started his life outside of Ildi's tummy by scaring the bejezus out of his parents! he was spitting up a lot of amniotic fluid and ended up being moved to he neonatal intensive care unit at Georgetown University Hospital. Thankfully, the doctors determined everything was okay and after a long harrowing day, the family got to go home.

We cant wait to go see the little guy and be the first to introduce him to the wonderful world of tofu.

Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before

I know I'm probably wearing out your patience for all things garden and farm-related, but let me just post this one last piece on produce. The garlic scape. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't until it showed up in our weekly CSA share. I turned to Google to figure out how to cook it (cut into 2 inch pieces, parboil for 2 minutes and saute or stir fry with other vegetables, or make it into a delightful sounding pesto). It's absolutely delicious. Like addictively delicious. I'm still thinking about it's light garlic flavor and asparagus-like texture. If you're lucky enough to run into it at the farmer's market this time of year, don't pass it up.

It being the weekend, we connected with friends over brunch both yesterday and today. Michelle and Jason, who just got married and recently returned from their honeymoon in Costa Rica, got an earful about our kooked-out investment strategy (the sky is falling so you best buy gold, and start hording whisky and soap to trade once the conventional economy collapses). The conversation was a little lighter this morning with Lyndon, Dea and their new bebeh Roland (or Rolli, as they prefer to call him). Well, actually, I take that back. We did a lot of complaining about the current state of medicine. Dea got screwed by the hospital where she gave birth as she ran a low fever after Rolli's birth. They wouldn't release her until it came down. After a number of days she insisted they let her go, and sure enough, as soon as she got home the fever disappeared. I confessed to them that I haven't set foot in a doctor's office for over 4 years (no, not even for a pelvic or any other routine exam) because I'm convinced you increase your chances of getting sick by visiting the doctor. When I told that to my family recently the news was met with shock and horror. Dea and Lyndon seemed to understand.

This week's daydreams: Rick Steves' interview with the author of Vagabonding and The Amateur Traveler's Chris Christensen's feature on a family of 6 who are just finishing up a year-long around the world tour made me think "could Dave and I take off for a year and travel? Who would take care of Vinny?" :: Biodynamics - when is the California Bay Area not at the forefront of extreme food trends? :: PayPlay - 1,300,000+ indie music tracks.

Caffeine Blues

So, I am on day 5 with no caffeine, and I am losing the will to live.

Many of you know about my long term, love/hate relationship with coffee. It's been a complicated affair, an emotional roller coaster if you will, and recently I finally decided to end it.

Moderation has never really been "my thing," and my most recent coffee binge left me feeling depressed and exhausted. I began a weaning off process by using caffeine pills, and decreasing my daily dosage over a two week period.

And then I had to say goodbye.

So here I am, a little more of a curmudgeon than usual, of course Jen says its just my usual cranky self.

Oh well, one day at a time.

What Bounty

Dave and I have been host these past few days to my mom Fran and sister Katy. Vinny the cat and I have been in heaven. Mom plays Vinny constantly and even let her out in the backyard one afternoon. (We quickly put an end to that, however, as Vinny has a habit of jumping the fence and disappearing for days. She can't be trusted outside). We've already seen 2 movies (Once and Waitress - both really fantastic), gone to the gym everyday, visited the US Botanical Gardens on a hellishly hot day, eaten brunch at local restaurants, including the absolutely delicious Belga Cafe on 8th Street, picked up our weekly share at the CSA Clagett Farm, and done a little work at our own vegetable plot at the Kings Court Community Garden. I even put my mom to work pulling weeds in the back yard (what a daughter, huh?).

And I'm happy to report that Dave and I have been harvesting vegetables from our little plot like maniacs. The radishes, mesclun, mustard greens and broccoli rabe (really best eaten very very young) were delicious!

Good stuff: If I were a real artist this is the kind of stuff I'd hope to produce :: Housewares company that made Vinny's incredibly fasionable, and earth-friendly, new bowl :: New band finds of the month The Bird and the Bee and The Frames.

Planticide?

There's something so satisfying about watching a seed you've planted sprout and turn into a plant. However, pulling those same plants that I've nurtured all season out of the ground to eat has taken me some time getting used to. I just couldn't get my head around it last summer and ended up picking most of my crops way too late - past the point where they tasted good, in fact. I vow to be ruthless this year.

Recognize the plants above, mom? It's the mesclun mix you bought me for Xmas last year. I've got the broccoli rabe in the next square, too. Everything's coming up this year, even the edamame seedlings I planted indoors. Better get those out into the garden this weekend, actually.

This week's discoveries: Gardening for the hip and female, You Grow Girl :: If only I could convince Dave, chickens in our backyard would be a great way to turn kitchen scraps into fertilizer :: Much better than the vermiculture set up (worms) we've got going right now :: Exactly the kind of drawing lessons I need - kid level!!!

It's Like Living in the Stone Age

If you've talked to us recently you've heard us complain that our Internet access has been spotty for the past three weeks or so. Ever since we had Dave's sister, brother in law, two nieces and mom stay we've been plagued by our phone and Internet service cutting out (that made it sound like the two things had something to do with each other - they didn't, just a sad coincidence). Dave spent weeks trying to get the Verizon guy to show up, but even when we thought all was fixed we're still having problems. We're scared to death it's the wiring inside the house, which means, let's face it, we'll probably never get this resolved. It's destined to go the way of the leaky ceiling in our bedroom (still leaking after five years and $20,000 spent on a new roof), the broken and jagged tile in the laundry room (don't venture in with bare feet - it's dark in there because the light's broken), one third of the way done curtain hanging project (jesus, can't we just pay someone to install these things for us?) and the bags of left over dirt from the landscaping project started right after I moved in.

And we don't even have kids to blame for our home repair negligence.

Don't you want to see what I bought recently? The perfect electronics back pack slash workout bag. Now I can carry twice as much gear on the plane :: Shockingly expensive sheets that are high thread count yet confusingly scratchy :: A stylish three ring binder to hold my journaling stuff for our upcoming Prague trip :: Moleskine's new city notebook the Prague edition - how effing cool is this???

Back by Popular Demand

Many apologies, folks. I'm not sure what caused that long, unscheduled hiatus. Alien abduction? Amnesia? Ennui? In any case, we promise to be better (thanks for your encouraging words mom, Michelle and Mory!)

After a long drawn out winter, spring seems to have come and gone and the last couple of weekends have been spent laboring in our gardens - both ornamental and vegetable. (I say we, but really I mean me - Dave's just not that into putting his hands in dirt). The seedlings have already started sprouting and we're looking forward to a bumper crop of radishes, edamame, mustard greens, carrots, mesclun, broccoli rabe, green beens and sugar snap peas. Apparently, none of the cruciferous varieties want to grow here, which is why my brussel sprouts, cabbage and broccoli went no where last fall.

We seem to be on some kind of fresh vegetable bacchanalia because we also joined a local CSA, Clagett Farm, and will start receiving our weekly produce share in the next couple weeks (the extended cold slowed growth down a bit). If you've got a CSA in your area why aren't you a member!? There's nothing like eating organic fruits and vegetables picked fresh that day. And the concept is something we all should be supporting: farms that are a part of and supported by the community so that we might all eat local and preserve open space (boo sprawly development!). It's the right thing to do, people!!!

Here's some other stuff on my mind lately: Home exchange, the alternative to high priced hotels :: Video of an artist flipping through his beautiful sketch travel journal :: Peak Oil, it's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).