Truffles
Typing on borrowed time
I'm typing this out at work, shhhh, don't tell anyone. Today "work" is baking chocolate peppermint cookies at Sarah's house for Saipua's holiday extravaganza this weekend. I'm crushing peppermints with a mortar and pestle. My life is good, yes? It smells so amazing in the kitchen, I wish you were here.
I'm trying to enjoy not having a computer at home. Last night I cleaned my whole house, even the tub. Someone give me a gold star, please. I dug deep into my record collection and pulled out some gems, Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, and duh, Stevie Nicks. I've started reading a good book. (from Amanda!) Is this how life was before the computer? Cause I like it. A lot.
My jacket, my mountain




Candyland

The more god-awful, the more bewitched I am, like a moth to a neon flickering window candle flame.



I love going places with my mom. Every time I take a photo of something, she asks me if I'm going to blog about it. I roll my eyes and say momm. This happens a few times a day when we're together so we've got a routine down. It's really cute.
All aboard
But after 8 years, I can't handle the chinatown bus anymore. Vomit, beer, freshly chewed spearmint gum, residual pot smoke. All things I got on my person last bus ride home. None of which were mine. VOMIT, people. Another human's VOMIT. Don't ask how. You don't want to know.

I've spent the past hour looking on Amtrak's website and dreaming of all of the places I can go on the train. So far, my trip's looking like Erie, Chicago, Bismark, Helena, Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Santa Fe, Austin, New Orleans, Memphis, Louisville, Baltimore and home. An Apple a Day whistlestop tour, coming 2010.
The Wagner
More from the family vault
To this day, while he searches for horn handled knives in the antique store, she hunts for old bits of lace. He goes crazy for bonsais at the botanic garden while she's giddy over the ferns and moss. She plays the bowed psaltery while he's on the recorder. He's baking the bread while she's manning the omelet pan.
This fall my dad has started driving my mom to work in the mornings. Last week he was so excited because he bought them matching his and hers travel mugs so they could drink coffee side by side for their hour long commute. Painfully adorable.
Pa Merrick
Makes me want to pinch his 7 year old cheek, which i'm sure he would have hated. Which naturally makes me want to do it all the more.
To-do's
Dog patting- check.
Antique malling, cold turkey gorging, attic rifling- check check check.
Over the river and through the woods...

Happy thanksgiving, friends. If I could share a piece of pie with you, I would.
Roses

I was at the botanic garden snapping photos when I realized I did basically this same rotting november roses post one year ago. Funny what a difference a year and a splurge-y camera make, even if the idea is the same.

Let's continue this tangent come next november's dying roses post, okay? I'm boring myself to tears with all of this existential dribble.
Busy bee
Quilt change
Last Saturday my apartment was shot for the design*sponge book. Including a 9am wet hair, no makeup, no bra portrait of yours truly because I lack foresight and acceptable "girl" sensibilities.... Buy the book next year and you'll see. Brutal honesty.
The funny thing about having photos taken of your house (or at least my house) is how clean but chaotic it leaves things. Random stuff gets shoved into very funny hiding places. My oven mitts got stashed inside the oven, which I promptly forgot about and I baked them for 20 minutes while preheating to cook dinner. Burnt and stunk. Life is such a comedy.
Dear folks,
I had wanted to write a post where I was able to thoughtfully express how I'm really not brave at all and how touching your comments were. But I couldn't find words eloquent enough. So instead I'm forced to just give you a big old fashioned thank you.
yours sincerely,
me
My anniversary
So there’s something I haven’t mentioned in my two years of writing An Apple a Day. Not because it’s a big deal or I’m embarrassed or anything, it just hasn’t come up and I didn’t really think it worthy of telling. But I figure if you’ve taken the time to read this stream of silliness, maybe you’d like to know a little bit more about me.
Four years ago today, the first of November, I was in a motorcycle accident. While pulling away from a stoplight at 20mph, we got run over by an SUV. I was wearing a full face helmet, a proper jacket and padded gloves. The good news is that everyone made it out alive. The bad news (which seems minor and totally inconsequential compared with the aforementioned good news) is that, technically, I didn’t make it out in one piece.
I was pinned down by the bumper of the SUV and my hand got stuck in the spinning chain and sprocket of the bike. While I was conscious, two and a half fingers on my left hand were ripped off. I’ll spare you the gory details here, but if we ever end up sharing a bottle of wine across the kitchen table (and I hope we do), we’ll get to the good stuff then. Like the bizarre and almost comical things I said while waiting for an ambulance, the Frankenstein moment of taking off the bandage for the first time, the life changing shock of not being able to count on one's fingers for basic arithmetic problems and what phantom pain actually feels like; the stuff people want to know about but are generally too respectful and timid to ask.
But in all sincerity, I am so lucky that nothing worse happened. People have endured things a hundred times more painful and heartbreaking than loosing three dispensable fingers and I know my experience ranks remarkably low on the tragedy scale. I’m right handed and still have my pointer and thumb, which makes a world of difference. I’ve adapted so that I still knit sweaters, carry stupidly heavy pieces of furniture, french braid my hair, sew my own clothes, speak sign language with my mom, hang a chandelier and do a handstand. My right handed, 7-fingered guitar skills leave something to be desired, however.
After the accident, it took a lot of effort to keep positive and motivated. I remember my dad talking about the fine line between grieving a loss and feeling unduly sorry for one’s self. I panicked thinking “oh shit. this could turn me into a bitter, resentful old lady if I don’t start to come to terms with it.” I went back for my final semester of college at the start of the new year and continued to pattern, draw and sew my senior collection one handedly. That’s not to say I wasn’t insanely weepy about it. I didn’t leave bed for nearly 5 weeks after the accident (I had some other injuries that prevented me from, oh, walking, bathing, feeding myself and otherwise acting like a grownup) so I had a lot of time on my hands to mope. Luckily, I’ve since snapped out of it.
Even though I’d consider myself well adjusted on the whole, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that writing this was very hard. Tears were shed. Taking these photos was surreal; I hardly even notice my hand anymore that so seeing it as others do was sort of a jolt. But I love my hand and can honestly say I wouldn't change it back if I could. It’s quirky and goofy and me.
So now you know about my checkered past involving Italian motorcycles. We're closer already, don't you think?
Pocket knife
I think this photo of the Emerson gang was taken in the late 1930s. 1939? Grandpa Bill is in the front next to his mother, Helen, who looks stunning.

In classic Emerson fashion, he dremeled his address into the handle and carried it in his pocket as he trekked across the Sahara, went on archeological digs in Crete and hiked up our beloved Mt. Monadnock. It's so freakin dull I'm in constant danger of killing myself every time I try to use it. In the realm of knife fixing uping, I am a total novice. Any advice?
Cambridge fieldtrip


Um yeah, that last bit wasn't my idea. The girls in the front seat controlled the cds and now I've been schooled in what "the kids are listening to these days". That poker face song and the other one about a shorty fire burning on the dance floor. Charming. Absolutely charming.
Jefferson's apples

Laugh if you must, but have you watched HBO's John Adams? Watch and ye shall see.