not even close to 100 books, June and July.

I feel like I read a lot more than this, but I got really bad about keeping track of what books I read. (Edit: I remembered one more!) Here is what I can remember from June and July

40. State of Wonder Ann Patchett A lovely book about scientists!
39. In the Garden of Beasts Eric Larson
38. The RedbreastJo Nesbo Did you finish the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books and wish that there were more books set in a frozen dystopian socialist nightmare with sex crimes and ne-onazis around every corner, but maybe with better editing and characters instead of obnoxious unrealistic caricatures? Then you should read the Harry hole books by Jo Nesbo. (Seriously, they are really good!)
37. Caleb's Crossing, Geraldine Brooks
36. Nemesis Jo Nesbo
35. The Devil's Star Jo Nesbo
34. The History of LoveNicole Krauss Beautiful!
33. East of Eden John Steinbeck. For sister book club. Love steinbeck, love this book

32. The Crucible Arthur Miller
31. A Discovery of witches Deborah Harkness
30. Cutting For Stone Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife Tea Obreht
27. Swamplandia! Karen Russell
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis
25. Galore, Michael Crummey
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

Sunscreen fail

I went to the beach today! it was great! Not the awesomest beach in the world, but secluded and not busy ( a miracle considering it is approximately 2349809234 degrees with 7 billion percent humidity on the east coast today). I did not take pictures of the beach becacuse I forgot my camera. I did however, take pictures of my hilariously ineptness at applying sunscreen. On the plus side, my sunscreen works because the protected area of skin remained the shade of bluish white that I pride myself on, even in winter. On the minus side, I missed about 50% of my legs.

Also, I wore giant sunglasses. You can tell, because I now have giant white circles on my face. ( excuse the cheesy myspace style portrait and excessive sweat)

not quite the jersey shore- level goggle lines you see on faces in federal hill, but pretty obnoxious.
God bless aloe+lidocaine, in an aerosol can.
And now, i am going to a movie. I don't care which one.

Not to brag

But I win at dinner:

Grilled cheese with brie, argula and fig jam, carrot salad with lemon and mint!

90% awesome, 10% epic disaster

So I went to Boston for the Fourth of july! It was such a cool place to be on the fourth-surrounded by people in their very best flag t-shirts, wandering about historic churches and meeting halls where the whole party got started.

The day was almost entirely awesome-we wandered around the parks and markets and the riverfront, stopping frequently for drinks and food. I tried mussels (a brave step for someone who vomits at the smell of most seafood). We ended up at a Mexican restaurant in Cambridge where we had an actual dinner accompanied by some ill advised tequila shots. Dark fell, and it was time to head back to boston for the fireworks. And then things went south. Due to a lot of factors, mostly involving drunken belligerence, we walked back to boston. Despite my repeated warnings that we only had 45 minutes after the fireworks ended to get back to the train station to get our train back to Providence, and thus we needed to watch the fireworks from the riverfront subway stop, we did not take the short, five minute subway ride back to the riverfront, but instead walked. The map below shows our path. You may have trouble seeing the scale, but our trip was nearly five miles (after wandering around boston for most of the day).

I've helpfully illustrated with self-explanatory symbols the points where my feet started to bleed, the point where we stopped to watch the gorgeous, gorgeous fireworks over the river, and the point where I realized that the cop had misdirected us to a much further subway station than we wanted, that we were likely were going to miss our train, that I was going to have to sleep in my clothes on a couch of a friend of a friend and turned into a total bitch. We did indeed miss the train, slept on spare beds at the home of a friend of a friend, took the six AM train back to providence and drank gallons of water. My feet are still bruised and shredded,and today is the first day I can walk relatively painlessly. Not the best fourth of july ever, but far from the worst and certainly one to remember.

Important interruption

You should really go make this pea pesto immediately. Reason one: it is awesome. Reason two: It is super easy and takes very little effort. This is cuisine for the lazy, you barely turn on the stove. Trust me, my other accomplishments this weekend include an accidental six hour nap (i think I'm getting sick? or depressed? i don't know! I don't feel sick or depressed but six hour naps were the earliest signs of both mono and crushing barely treatable depression! Maybe it's a summer cold), dozing off during church (but I went to church!), and reading a 460 page book in one (long) sitting.

So, we have now established that this should be made immediately. Well, first you should go to the farmer's market and get freshfreshfresh peas. Do not mess around with frozen, or heaven forbid, canned peas, as they are both nast-o and should be banned from the planet. Is there any food that is as ruined by processing as beautiful sweet peas?

Now, as usual, I modified the recipe. Making anything from Smitten Kitchen puts me into this intense conflict between my belief that Deb (aka the Smitten Kitchen lady) can do no wrong and my complete and total inability to follow directions without tweaking them. So, for this recipe, the biggest change was adding mint-roughly half the amount of fresh mint leaves as peas, I guess? I think this really enhanced the flavor of the pesto-mint and peas are perfect together! Other little changes you can take or leave: I doubled the garlic because I don't plan on kissing anyone tonight, cut down on the cheese because I like pestos with less cheese so I can sprinkle more on top (also becacuse I was using my good expensive parmigianno reggiano and a little goes a long way). I swapped in some almonds for the pine nuts because I could!

This is the most amazing thing I've eaten today. And that includes an Egg Mcmuffin and chocolate-peccan banana bread.

Team Coco

Conan O'Brien's commencement speech at Dartmouth. All of it funny, but the last ten or so minutes are particularly good.

lovely weekend

This weekend was extra amazing, because my dear Edie came to visit me! We had lots of fun eating, drinking wine, exploring Rhode Island, and drinking more wine.
Saturday started with pancakes and bacon for breakfast!

Followed by coffee and shopping on Thayer, where we bought these spectacular, genuine diamond friendship rings for five whole dollars. Guess who broke hers within three hours?

We went to Federal Hill for delicious Italian food and wine, including a baked goat cheese and san marzano tomato appetizer that was among the best things I have ever eaten. This is a crappy picture, but Federal Hill is super pretty

Post-wine portrait

On Sunday, we went down to the Bay, stopping off at Greenvale Vineyards.

What a hideous place to spend an afternoon.

Next onto Newport, where we walked along the cliffs, and then sadly I dropped Edie off at her conference.

It was such a fun weekend-I loved having a visitor to explore my new home with! I'm a little sad to go back to normal life again. Luckily, Edie and I may have time to rendezvous for lunch on friday before she heads back to alabama, so there may be more adventures to come!

Things!

a) I bought a TV and a cherry pitter this weekend. So far the cherry pitter has seen more action

b) As I have two (2) friends in providence, I do pretty much whatever they are interested in. One friend is canadian and way into hockey! So I've been watching the Stanley cup finals at bars. I have been to the bar 3 times in the last week. I've been out past midnight 3 times in the past week. Needless to say, this does not normally happen, no matter how many friends I have. It has generally been a blast, and I've met lots of people and expanded my social circle and will maybe someday have more than two friends.

c) We have undergrads in the lab! They are three girls, aged 19. That's nine years younger than me. Which means that when I was in college they were in middle school. When I was learning to drive, they were in first grade. I feel old.

d) It is going to be 98 and humid here on thursday. That's Alabama weather, and I do not approve

Less than 100 books, April and May

At this point, I am obviously not going to make it to 100 books, as I would need to read 19 books in June to get back on pace. Curse having a "real life".

32. The Crucible Arthur Miller For PSBC. Reading plays makes me want to be in a play
31. A Discovery of witches Deborah Harkness You know how before I said I don't finish books I don't like? Not true in this case. This book is awful. Don't read it. It has an interesting enough story (why I finished it). But. Is there something about vampire books that makes authors tell you things instead of show them? In regular books you are supposed to show, not tell. The characters are awful. I hate them all and wish they would die. Also, this book is about vampires. Don't read it.
30. Cutting For Stone Abraham Verghese
29. 22 Brittania Road Amanda Hodgkinson
28. The Tiger's wife Tea Obreht amazing! It's a pretty quick read and so wonderful. One of my favorites ever.
27. Swamplandia! Karen Russell also amazing! Story of a family who runs an Alligator wrestling theme park in the swampy part of Florida. I loved it. It's told from the point of view of a 13 year old, and the author does a great job of tricking your adult sensibilities into not seeing danger until she does.
26. The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis For PSBC's continuing Devil and God series. We found CSL to be an insufferable douchebag.
25. Galore, Michael Crummey Galore is beautiful! If you've read 100 Years of Solitude, it's a similar winding family tale told with magical realism, but in a very different setting.
24. Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Kielson
23.Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides This one is really good, but tricky. There is incest and hermaphroditism, and you have to get over any icky feelings you have about it immediately. If you do, it's a great book. Another one that goes on the all time favorite list.

Previously
22. Great House Nicole Krauss
21. The Children's Book A. S. Byatt.
20. Room Emma Donaghue
19. The Lady Matador's Hotel Cristina Garcia
18. The Lonely Polygamist, Brady Udall
17. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
16. The Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell
15. The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great Migration, Isabelle Wilkerson
14. Little Bee Chris Cleave
13 Fool Christopher Moore
12. A Dirty Job Christopher Moore
10. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
9. Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart
8. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova.
7.Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood.
6. Faithful Place, Tana French.
5. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read them, Elif Batuman.
4. Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri.
3. The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell.
2. Bite Me, Christopher Moore.
1. Devil in the White City Eric Larson.

not grown up

Elizabeth: I had bread and olive oil and grapes
me: grapes or wine?
Elizabeth: and I was like, hey! this is healthy!
and then I was like, wait. Maybe I need to not think that is healthy before I am grown-up enough to have children.
Grapes AND wine
me: ahhh!
I mean, it's not bad
are you having children soon?
Elizabeth: no.
but I mean.
it's good to remember these moments
when I get baby fever.
me: yeah
Elizabeth: it's good to be young and unattached
and very good for the potential child.
me: when I am like "I want a baby right now" I think "ok, I just took ap icture of my cat in a suitcase from a trip i returned from a week ago that is open in the middle of the living room because I have been pulling semi-clean clothes out of to wear all week. no babies"


ADDENDUM, because biffy is hilarious:

Elizabeth : I kind of want to make "Good news! I bought a box of wine! Love, biffy"
my new email signature.